#i feel like tagging this ‘’courtney love’’ would be in bad taste!

[detectivelokis]

OC Tag Game

Tagged by: @socially-awkward-skeleton @marivenah @eclecticwildflowers @leviiackrman @emotionalcadaver @clonesupport @kyber-infinitygems @voidika @strangefable @madparadoxum @strafethesesinners

Tagging: @sstewyhosseini @jinfromyarikawa @river-ward @nightwingshero @direwombat @confidentandgood @nightbloodbix @poisonedtruth @ghastlyrider @risingsh0t @captastra @derelictheretic @gwynbleidd @aceghosts @cassietrn @trench-rot @josephslittledeputy @inafieldofdaisies @pheedraws @megraen @poetikat @swanfey @vampireninjabunnies-blog @bunfey @simply-jason @jacobsneed and anyone else who wants to tag me. I’m sure I forgot someone

Favorite OC

My baby girl. My muse. The ultimate inspo. When I first created Charlie I was not expecting her to have such an impact on my life, but I cannot imagine not writing for her now. I love how complicated she is. Cruel yet maternal, materialistic and vain yet loves her partners and few loved ones unconditionally, manipulative yet brutally honest about who she is. She’s just a fun character and I’m so proud of having created her.

Oldest OC

I haven’t really thought about Mathilda much in years, and I certainly have much older girlies from when I made OCs for Pirates of The Caribbean and Interview with The Vampire in middle school, but she was the first OC I created in years when I was hyperfixating on Vikings back in 2017. She’s a sweet girl, much different from a lot of my current ocs. She’s naive and innocent. An orphan who was raised in a convent. But, like a lot of my girls, she can’t help falling for a bad guy. One day I’ll get back to her/move her to a new fandom that’s more deserving of her.

Newest OC

My baby girl Mack is my newest girlie. She came about when I realized we were severely lacking in Claire ships and well, I needed to provide. She’s another sweet girl. A young politician’s daughter who is just trying to survive a world that she was never raised to be prepared for. I’m excited to start fleshing her out more and she’s been on the mind a lot these last few days.

Meanest OC

It was hard to choose between her and Charlie, but Dylan is cold as ice. She very rarely prioritizes the feelings of others and can be pretty harsh on them as well. One of the few people that she shows unconditional kindness and love to is her daughter, Rory. Besides that, everyone else is just another potential mark. Until she meets Zsasz that is 🙈

Softest OC

Gwen is my ultimate baby girl. She’s incredibly sensitive, optimistic, and views the world through rose-colored glasses. Very much a glass half full kinda girl. I mean, one of her main hobbies is writing love poems for her man. She’s a very rare type of character for me to write and I miss her everyday. Too bad the Arcane fandom is batshit.

Honorable Mention: Mackenzie Liu

Most Aloof/Standoffish OC

Again, it’s Dylan. Girl does not care to make friends or even acquaintances unless she’s absolutely forced to. Though there are a couple people who are able to win her over.

Smartest OC

Gwen’s favorite subjects in university were botany and philosophy. She’s a very brainy and kinda nerdy girl. That plus her innate sweetness is what makes her so perfect for Viktor.

Dumbest (Affectionate) OC

Of course it’s Charlie. And the funny thing is, she’s not even really that dumb. She’s actually fairly intelligent, but she has a talent for being able to completely ignore red flags despite actually being aware they exist. She’s also willing to shove common sense to the side when it comes to love or someone hurting her ego. When she actually does use her brain everyone is surprised by the shit she manages to accomplish.

OC I’d be Friends with IRL

Courtney! She’s the best of both worlds. She’s a tough, take no shit kinda girl, but she’s also very sweet and will have anyone’s back if they prove to be a decent person. She also has great taste in music and she’s insanely personable from being a popular bartender, so I think she would just be fun to hang out with.

#man so many girls I haven’t talked about in a while #it’s been the Charlie show for awhile here 🙃 #oc: charlie berger #oc: mathilda #oc: mackenzie liu #oc: dylan leone #oc: gwen belmont #oc: courtney darling #tag games

[smilepal]

About me meme

Thanks for tagging me, @gloryride! 💖💖 Nickname: Liv/Smilepal online, irl it's Liv or Olivia. Zodiac: Leo Height: 165cm/5'5 Last movie I saw: Watched Frozen 2 with some friends, who managed to make a drinking game out of it--I didn't partake but it was entertaining to watch all the same. Also got to hear each song turned into a drunken sing-along. You just get used to it after a while when your friends are all former theater nerds. Everything can be made into a song if you try hard enough. Last thing I googled: "Documentaries everyone should watch"--sick at home with a cold rn, and I've been looking for some to binge-watch. It's hard becuase I'm really picky about the narrators and if they sound vaguely irritating, I can't watch them 😂

Favorite musician: Just one? That's really hard to pick, and my music taste is definitely a little eclectic, so I'll go with composers instead--easier to narrow down. Alexandre Desplat and Abel Korzeniowski are two I really adore and Martin Phipps is another favorite. The latter did the soundtracks for the Crown, and they're lovely--I like them for studying when I need background noise. Song stuck in my head: I Don't Care, Fall Out Boy. I went to one of their concerts recently and it's been stuck in my head since (along with This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race). Other blogs: Don't have one, I've thought about it, but one is already hard to stay on top of and I have classes starting soon. So I definitely don't need any more distractions 😅 Blogs Following: 150-ish? I should probably go through those pretty soon and pare out some of the really inactive ones.

Amount of sleep: It depends on whether I'm in classes or on break, but generally speaking not enough. I was averaging 4-5 when I was working in a bakery/trying to juggle classes and now it's more like 6-7. Someday I'll maybe get 8-9 (I hope--I'm bad at sleep though, especially when I'd rather be gaming or talking to people on Discord). Lucky Number: 9 What I’m wearing: Red sleep shorts and a tank top that says "exercise your demons" with a little demon stretching on the front of it--it's a lazy sick day on the couch/working from home so not putting too much effort into it. Dream Job: Archivist or curator for a big museum or archive. I'd love something that allows me to work with art/history, and gives me the opportunity to travel--and maybe get some writing in there too. It's something I feel passionately about, and being able to make a living doing it would be even better~ Dream Trip: Oh man, there are so many places. Ireland/the UK is on my list--so many cool places to visit (castles please) and manuscripts to look at! And a lot of pretty nature too. Or places like Greece/Spain/France--so much cool history, and architecture (and the very good food is definitely a bonus). If we're talking inside the US, I'd love to explore the East Coast a bit more and visit some of the national parks--most of my visits there have been in the cities, and I'd like to do some more hiking. The west coast (Washington/British Columbia/Alaska) is also on my list for the same reason. Anywhere I can explore and take pretty pictures, really.

Languages: English and (terrible) Spanish. Probably going to be auditing classes for Latin/Ancient Greek in the future to help with my degree. Favorite Food: Mm it's hard to pick but I'm a sucker for anything sweet. I love a cup of coffee with biscotti or a shortbread cookie, or any sort of pastry with cream and fruit. On the more savory side, curries are one of my go-tos, especially Thai curry. Favorite Song: I definitely cannot pick just one, but my favorite genre lately has been Blues/Blues-Rock so Black Keys has been one I've been listening to a lot of. Barnes Courtney too. Random Fact: One of the first video games I've ever played was Bomberman Tournament, followed by Pokemon Silver. One of my older cousins had a gameboy he'd let me play, so that's definitely how it started. The soundtracks from those are still so nostalgic 💖 Also have good memories of watching family play the original version of OOT, or Super Mario World on the SNES (and giving me a controller so I'd feel included). The hobby definitely started young 😅 but it's definitely still one of my favorite things to do with friends. Describe yourself as an aesthetic thing: Hard to describe? Low-key goth/artsy probably, but still comfy. I love slouchy beanies and cozy scarves and oversized flannels, and long, drapy sweaters, or overshirts. Lots of black, reds and gray 💖 Leather jackets, and boots too 👌

Thanks for asking!! This was so fun 🥰🥰🥰

Tagging: @onlymeandlife @billlybutcher @faepunkprince @rindemption @saintsofvoid @katsigian @breezypunk @scarecrowshindig @heywoodvirgin @visixv @kerrybearodyne @darkendkurai @squintingneoneyes and @caffeinatedrogue/anyone else who sees it and wants to try 💖

#tag game #behind the blogger #liv speaks/rambles #most recent selfie I think? hiking and trying to pretend that it's not 90f and humid 🤢

[artificialqueens]

Off Limits, Chapter 1 (Bitney, Willaska) - Veronica/Albatross

A/N: Hey guys! This is the companion story to “No Strings Attached.” We’re tagging them both as “Just Friends” so that it’ll be easy to read the chapters in order, but once it gets complicated, I might include a guide. Both ships are in both stories, but generally, “No Strings Attached” is Willaska-focused and this one is Bitney-focused. (Link to all chapters in order, which so far is just 2.)

Summary: When Bianca meets her new roommates, she’s especially captivated by one of them. Worse, the feeling seems to be mutual.

***

Bianca hated being fucking late. It was bad enough that she’d had to drive all the way from New Orleans to California, praying that her 7-year-old Kia wouldn’t break down. But for the last leg of her trip, which should have been 45 minutes, she got caught in an accident on the freeway that turned what should have been a short, pleasant zip up the freeway into a torturous 4-hour crawl.

By the time she reached the dorms, she was fuming--not to mention exhausted. And having to lug her shit from possibly the worst parking spot in the garage did nothing to improve her shitty mood. By the time she’d achieved some semblance of order in her room, she was hot and thirsty and as cranky as she’d ever been.

She chugged about a gallon of water and then collapsed on the sofa, arm over her eyes, trying to summon the energy to think about a shower.

It was then when the front door swung open and a trio of laughing, chattering girls poured inside.

Bianca looked up. At first glance, all she saw was Blonde, Blonde, Blonde. A bunch of perfect, plastic sorority girls, exactly the type of girl she couldn’t stand. (And, if she was honest, exactly the type of girl that she always feared a little bit.) She groaned inwardly, sitting up and giving them a withering glare.

Unable to help herself, she announced, “Great...I’m living with a bunch of bottle blonde bitches.” As the words left her mouth, she realized that she was perhaps not making the best first impression. But instead of taking it back, she doubled down with, “So whose hideous leopard duvet is that?”

The Littlest Blonde burst into delighted giggles, before glancing at the (Bianca assumed) Duvet-Owning Blonde beside her and pressing her lips together contritely.

Slutty Blonde slung an arm around Duvet Blonde and said, “Calm down, bitch. Some of us are garbage pails with hideous taste. We’re still people.”

Bianca pursed her lips, determined to continue hating them all.

With that, Little Blonde skipped forward, flinging herself onto the sofa and offering a bright smile.

“Hi, I’m Courtney. You must be our fourth roommate,” she said.

She had an accent--a cute accent. Shit. Do not let the accent fool you. This Barbie doll bitch isn’t your friend.  

“Wow...what gave that away, detective?” Bianca asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.

“Well…” she leaned in conspiratorially, speaking in a low voice. “It would be a little weird for you to be here, if you weren’t. So...” She finished with a flutter of lashes and another dazzling smile, green eyes dancing with amusement.

Well, fuck. Bianca was not planning to be this charmed, this quickly. The plan was to be grumpy and sulk for awhile. Foiled by a pretty face...not the first time, but still annoying.

“Genius.” Bianca tried to suppress her smile, but dimples poked through anyway.

“I knooow, right?”

Australian. Bianca winced. Surely this was some kind of karmic justice for a terrible deed she’d done as a child. After all, there was no way in hell that Bianca would get involved with one of her roommates. She was many things, but she was not that messy.

“So, are you gonna tell us your name?” Courtney asked.

“Yeah, sorry. Bianca. Hi.”

“Hi, Bianca, nice to meet you.”

God, even the way she said her name was sexy. Bee-aaaahn-cah. Ugh. Bianca was well and truly fucked.

“Hey, I’m Willam,” Slutty Blonde said, perching on the arm of the sofa. “And that’s Alaska...your roommate. You should be nicer to her; she’s cool.”

Duvet Blonde gave a halfhearted wave.

“Hi, Alaska,” Bianca said, slightly chagrined, “I’m sorry...about your lack of taste. We’ll work on it.”

Courtney giggled again, tossing her hair, still watching Bianca closely. And as much as she wanted to look away, to dismiss her as some airhead, she had to admit that something in her eyes was captivating.

“So, Bianca...where are you from?” Courtney asked.

“New Orleans,” Bianca told her.

“Oooh, have you ever been to Mardi Gras?!” she asked, eyes lighting up.

“Uhh. Yeah.”

“Did you bring us any beads?”

“Why not get out your tits and see, Court?” Willam suggested.

Courtney started to lift the edge of her shirt, and Bianca’s eyes went wide--this girl was turning out to be a lot more than she’d bargained for. Courtney glanced at her surprised face and burst out laughing again.

“Just kidding.”

“Good one,” Bianca offered, a little ashamed at the flash of disappointment she felt. Of course she was kidding; Bianca needed a cold shower.  

“So, are you a new student here?” Courtney asked.

“Yeah.” Bianca cleared her throat. “I transferred from LSU.”

“Where’s that?”

“Louisiana...State...University,” Bianca explained slowly, as if she was talking to a child. Her tone was intentionally condescending, but Courtney continued her rapid-fire questions undeterred.

“Ah! Brilliant. And have you-”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Bianca said. She’d never experienced that many questions in a row, and considering her gigantic nosy-ass family, that was saying a lot. If she wasn’t so cute, Bianca would be thoroughly irritated.  

“Sure does,” Willam added with an eye roll.

“Oh yeah. I know. Is it annoying you?” Courtney bit her lip, head tilted cutely.

“That’s another question,” Bianca declared stonily, pretending once again not to be charmed. And doing a piss-poor job of it, if the glimmer in Courtney’s eyes was any indication.

“Hmm, I guess it is,” Courtney said, tone lilting and gently mocking. “Sorry, I’m just trying to get to know you.”

“Maybe I should ask you some questions.”  

“Maybe you should!” Courtney replied brightly. She stretched her legs--long, tan, killer legs--placing them on the coffee table and folding them delicately at the ankles. “What would you like to know?”

Do you moan in an Australian accent?

Bianca coughed, mind blanking for a moment, before admitting with a shrug, “I guess...I’m not very curious.”

“Pity. ‘Cause I’m an open book.”

“Uh. Good to know.” After a beat, Bianca offered, “So. I had kind of a shitty morning.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Courtney sat up straighter, the teasing smirk replaced with an expression of genuine concern. “Are you okay?”

“It’s fine, I just...I was actually about to jump in the shower. I’ll probably be in a better mood after that.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said Willam, and Alaska let out a clipped laugh.

“I deserved that,” Bianca said with a nod and wry smile. “So I guess I’ll go...do that.”

With one last glance at the group, Bianca got up and walked towards her bedroom to get her things.

“What a cunt,” Willam said loudly--loud enough that Bianca knew it was for her benefit. She chuckled to herself.

“Bill!” Courtney scolded, then added, “I like her.”

“Clearly. Why don’t you go make my bed?”

“Make your own bed, dickhead!” Courtney shrieked.

The shower was much needed. Bianca could feel the stress of the day literally rinsing away, muscles relaxing in the steamy water. When she re-entered her bedroom, Alaska was lounging on the bed, flipping through a magazine. She sat down at her desk, pulling over a light-up mirror.

She took her time blow-drying her hair. Even put on some makeup. No reason not to look nice for a relaxing afternoon of getting to know her roommates, right? She pulled on a casual summer dress and sandals and then began to put everything away in its spot...blow dryer in the stackable basket with her curling iron, makeup in the case, brushes in the cup.

She turned around to Alaska, who gave her a smile.

“I like your bins,” Alaska commented, gesturing to Bianca’s compulsively organized and labeled plastic bins, lined up under her bed and stacked on the dresser.

“Thanks. And I like your...uh…” Bianca surveyed the mess on Alaska’s side of the room before settling on the word, “...piles.”

Alaska let out a loud cackle. The most Bianca had seen her laugh yet. She grinned wryly.

“I’m a little bit messy, sorry,” Alaska said.

“It’s cool,” Bianca shrugged. “To each their own.”

“I’ll keep it contained, I swear. And on my side of the room.”

“You fucking better!” Bianca exclaimed, and was rewarded with another laugh from her roommate.

***

Courtney didn’t like to admit it, but she’d had a bit of a lonely summer. She’d decided with her parents that, since she wanted to come home for Christmas again this year, it made more sense for her to stay at school, taking a few classes and working at an internship.

It usually wasn’t hard for Courtney to make friends, but somehow, she hadn’t connected with anyone. Her classmates seemed lovely, and her coworkers were nice enough too, but she missed the late-night gossiping with Willam, the chance to let loose and be silly. The girls she attempted to hang out with over the summer just weren’t the kind of unpredictable fun that Willam was. And her summer roommate was a reclusive Belgian girl who spent all of her time buried in her laptop wearing headphones.

But today, she was thrilled. Willam was finally back, and even better, she had two new fantastically wonderful roommates.

Alaska was great. A little reserved, maybe, but that was alright with Courtney. She had a great sense of humor and a genuinely kind soul that Courtney adored right away. Plus, she seemed to get along really well with Willam, which was a relief. (Courtney loved her BFF, but she knew that getting her seal of approval could be difficult.)

And then there was Bianca. Blunt and a bit abrasive, but Courtney found herself thoroughly enchanted almost immediately, reveling in her sharp wit and acid tongue. Her dark, flashing eyes. She was unlike anyone Courtney had ever met before, truth be told.

As Courtney helped Willam stuff her clothes into the closet and dresser and arrange her shoes and bags under the bed, she sighed happily, grateful to be surrounded by people with whom she could really let down her hair.

It took ages before Willam was satisfied. Well, not so much satisfied as much as resigned to accept the confines of their limited space. She turned to Courtney with a sigh, saying, “Well, it is what it is, I guess.”

Courtney laughed and suggested that they check on the others, skipping happily over to Bianca and Alaska’s open door. She pushed it in further, asking, “How are you ladies doing? Bonding?”

“Oh yeah,” Bianca said, turning around in her desk chair, large curling iron in hand. “Our periods are already in sync.”

Alaska laughed, and Courtney was glad to see that some of her earlier tension had melted away.

“How disgustingly primal,” Willam said, collapsing on the bed next to Alaska, who moved over to give her space.

Courtney settled on the floor nearby. She watched as Bianca carefully styled her hair, admiring the color—a rich, reddish mahogany brown—and wondering how she got it so shiny.

“Is your room bigger than ours?” Willa asked, pulling Courtney out of her thoughts as she looked around suspiciously.

“I don’t know. Is it?” Bianca asked.

“Bill’s pretty pissed about the closet space,” Courtney explained. “I gave her one of my drawers, but…” She shrugged, pulling affectionately on one of Willam’s bare feet, “Some people are just never satisfied.”

“I have an extra drawer, too,” Alaska offered, and Bianca’s eyebrows shot up.

“You sure you don’t want to use that for some of the stuff that’s…” she gestured to the top of Alaska’s dresser.

Looking at their spaces, Courtney could see a clear clash of styles. Bianca’s things were almost obsessively organized, lined up in containers with p-touch labels. Alaska’s side of the room was more haphazard, similar to Courtney’s space.

“Nah, she can have it,” Alaska said with a sweet smile, and Bianca responded by sticking out her tongue briefly.

Courtney giggled, seeing them tease each other, happy that they already seemed to be friends. She relaxed against Alaska’s desk chair, finally content to just let the conversation drift as it were, taking a break from her usual Oprah mode.

“So...not to be a wet blanket on all this delightful female bonding, but...where can a bitch find some decent vegetarian food around here?” Bianca asked, putting away her hairstyling tools and turning around.

“You’re hungry?” Courtney looked up at her.

“No, just thought I’d buy some food and throw it at seagulls. Yes, I’m fucking hungry.”

Through Courtney’s immediate laughter, Willam muttered, “Decent shit is mostly downtown...but edible? There’s the cafeteria next door, the salad bar over by the biology building, food court in the quad, the-”

“No, Bill,” Courtney giggled out with a weak swat at Willam’s leg. “Let’s get something different. Something better.” She decided not to add ‘for Bianca.’

Willam rolled her eyes and huffed out, “Fine then, cunt. Where do you suggest we eat?”

There was a moment’s pause as Courtney pondered over the question before thoughtfully looking up at Bianca, asking, “Do you like burritos?”

“Wow. That’s racist.”

“No, it’s not because you’re--I didn’t mean--it’s just that they’re really good and you said-” Courtney tripped all over herself to explain, flustered, cheeks growing hot. Shit, she hoped she hadn’t been offensive.

After a beat, Bianca burst out laughing.

“I was kidding, calm down. Burritos sound good.”

“Courtney, are you talking about that hole in the wall on Fair Oaks? We’ll have to take a car.”

“It’s good, and they have tons of veggie options, and you love driving,” Courtney insisted. “Plus, everything on campus will be chockers right now.”

“‘Chockers’?!” Willam repeated. “That’s so Aussie!”

“Packed, full, whatever, you know I’m right.”

“Ugh. Alright,” Willam groaned, then asked, “Alaska? You in?”

“Uh, I’m not really all that hungry,” Alaska said. “You guys should go.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m getting a little bit of a headache.”

“Oh no!” Courtney leapt to her feet. “Do you need something? I have magnesium supplements. Or, vitamin b-complex. That’s great for headaches!”

“Or, if you want something that actually works, I got Tylenol and Advil…” Bianca gestured to one of her boxes.

“I’ve got Vicodin,” Willam added. “And weed.”

“Thanks guys, but I think I just need to lay down for awhile.”

“Okay, we’ll leave you alone. Let us know if you want us to bring you back any food,” Courtney offered.

“Thanks.”

As the group trooped out of the room, Bianca grabbed her purse and then slung an arm around Courtney’s shoulder, asking, “Magnesium supplements?”

“My dad’s a doctor of alternative medicine,” Courtney giggled.

“Well, that tracks…”

***

By the time they perched on the rickety stools at the burrito place, Bianca was beyond starving. She dug into her food with a passion as Courtney resumed her questioning from earlier.

“Sooo,” she began, drawing out the word in that infuriatingly adorable Australian way, “You said that you transferred from Louisiana, right? What brings you out here?”

“Well, I’m majoring in marketing and international relations, and they have this scholarship that combines-”

“You’re an Ashford Scholar?!” Courtney exclaimed, eyes widening dramatically.

Bianca couldn’t help be a bit pleased with herself, happy that the prestigious scholarship was known even beyond the business school. Courtney was clearly impressed, and so she gave a small shrug of faux modesty.

“That’s amazing, that’s really...you know only 1 person a year gets that, right?” Courtney asked.

Bianca nodded and swallowed, then said, “Can’t wait to meet last year’s bitch. I assume they’re extraordinary too.”

Courtney giggled, resting her cheek on her hand. “So I guess that means you’re gonna have a lot of work to do. I heard those Ashford internships are seriously intense.”

“I’ll manage…”

Though her answer sounded nonchalant, she was enjoying Courtney’s obvious respect for her accomplishment. Her eyes practically glimmered in admiration.

“What about you, dollface?” Bianca asked. “What’s your major? Psychology?”

“No...although actually I did consider that!” Courtney said.

“Shocking.”

Courtney giggled, crunching down on a chip and saying, “I’m doing PoliSci.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Yeah…” she leaned in and stage whispered, “Your political system here is absolutely up the shit.”

Bianca laughed, not entirely familiar with that expression but getting the gist. She was about to agree when Willam interrupted her thoughts.

“That’s so Aussie!” Willam said, mouth muffled with food.

She assumed that was some kind of inside joke, but found herself unconcerned with being left out. What was more troubling was that until that moment, she’d temporarily forgotten that Willam was even there. She could already tell that it was a problem...how enchanting her new roommate was. Not to mention beautiful. The more Bianca looked into Courtney’s face, the more captivated she became. She cleared her throat, forcing her attention to Willam, who was working her way through a steak burrito bowl. Bianca nudged her foot.

“What’s your major, then?”

She expected a proud, boastful response but instead, there was just further silence. Conversation dropped dead for a few moments before Courtney chimed in softly with, “She doesn’t have a major yet...She’s still undeclared.”

“What?” Bianca exclaimed in amazement as a hint of pink rose to Willam’s cheeks despite her stony expression. “How can you still be undeclared? What year are you in?”

“Third,” Willam answered tensely, “And it's not that unusual. I just haven’t found the right thing yet, okay?”

If it wasn’t clear before that this was a touchy subject, the little huff at the end of her defense made it painfully obvious.

“Okay, well...cool.” Bianca grimaced awkwardly. Served her right for trying her hand at some Courtney-esque interview questions. She racked her brain for a lighter topic of conversation. “So...what do you guys...do for fun?”

“Shop,” Willam answered decisively.

“Oh! You know what we should do!” Courtney exclaimed brightly. “We should go to Cielo Plaza tomorrow!”

“What’s that?” Bianca asked, relieved that the subject change had worked.

“A mall,” Willam answered. “It’s no King of Prussia but there are a few good stores in there.”

Bianca wasn’t sure what the fuck “King of Prussia” was, but Courtney breezed right past it, happily pitching how great the activity would be.

“Yeah! And it’s so cute. We could have lunch, find some more decorations for the apartment, get some new clothes-”

“Should ask Alaska if she wants to come too,” Willam said, continuing to speak through mouthfuls of food.

“Of course!” Courtney enthused. “And then Saturday, we could go to the beach! Do you like the beach?”

Bianca did not like the beach. Sand in her asscrack was the last thing she wanted. But the idea of seeing Courtney in a bathing suit was pretty appealing…

“Love the beach,” she said with a smile.  

“Great!” Courtney leaned back proudly.

“So, uh…what about nighttime fun?” Bianca’s eyes flickered unconsciously to Courtney’s glossy lips, the way her tongue toyed with the straw, before quickly adding, “Any good clubs?”

“We’re underage,” Courtney said sweetly.

“Oh, right.” Bianca turned to Willam. “Come on. I know you’ve got a fake ID. Where do you go?”

A secretive, almost mischievous smile spread across Willam’s lips as her eyes narrowed in on Bianca consideringly. There was a confident, daring tone in her voice as she responded with a simple, “Depends.”

Arching her brow, egging her on, Bianca shot back, “On?”

Willam’s smile grew just a little wider as answered, “On what your type of scene is.”

Fully catching onto the joke that had gone over Courtney’s head, Bianca sat back in her seat, arms crossed with an amused grin of her own and asked, “What do you think it is?”

There was a loaded pause as the two stared one another down. Courtney’s eyes darted back and forth in confusion, looking absolutely lost.

Finally, after what felt like a decade of waiting, Willam broke the silence of the group and replied almost smugly, “I think you'll be right at home in Sierra's.”

“Willam!” Courtney scolded harshly as she gave her friend a firm smack to the arm. Turning a bright shade of pink, she turned to Bianca and apologized, lowing her voice, “I'm sorry, that...that's a gay bar.”

The way her voice had dipped into such a low whisper had Bianca laughing on the spot. As soon as she managed to get ahold of herself, she inquired with amusement, “So? What’s wrong with gay bars?”

Stunned, Courtney blinked several times before finding her voice again. “Nothing! That’s not what I-it’s not that there’s anything wrong, she just shouldn’t assume...I mean, if you’re okay with it, then-”

“Well, it’s probably gonna be my best bet at getting laid,” came the nonchalant answer.

Looking rather pleased with herself, Willam piped back up for affirmation, “So you are...?”

Nodding her head, Bianca confirmed, “Mh-mm...And what about you? Casual observer or part of the family?”

“I mean...if that's what I'm in the mood for, yeah.”

“Makes sense,” Bianca quipped as her brow arched, “You do seem like the ‘take it anywhere you can get it’ type.”

The comment earned a loud laugh, one distinct enough to draw the attention of nearly everyone else in the shop. Despite the onlookers, Willam reassured her with a playful grin, “Trust me bitch, it’s not that hard to get it around here...”

“Sounds promising,” Bianca replied before turning back to Courtney, “You alright, dollface? You’ve been awfully quiet over here.”

Stumbling to collect herself, Courtney found herself mumbling, “Oh...um, no. I mean, yeah, I'm not-I mean-”

“Court is straight,” Willam said, saving her from stammering any longer.  

“You don’t say,” Bianca said, trying to sound like she’d known all along. Secretly though, she was a bit surprised. She could have sworn that the blonde had been giving her vibes all day. Well...too bad. Karmic justice, indeed. With a sly sideways glance at her, Bianca clucked, “Pity.”  

Snorting through her laughter, Willam shook her head and said, “Yeah, you wish, bitch. But that pussy’s a boys club.”

“Bill!” Courtney wrinkled her nose in distaste.

Bianca shook her head sadly, asking, “So...you’ve never even been eaten out by someone who actually knows what the hell they're doing down there?”

“Hey! Men can learn!” Courtney exclaimed defensively, then a tiny conspiratorial grin crept onto her face and she admitted, “I mean...hypothetically.”

Bianca burst into cackling laughter.

“Oh, you poor baby,” she cooed, still giggling, slipping an arm around Courtney’s shoulders. Courtney turned to her with a look of good-natured self-pity, lower lip puffed out, batting her lashes slowly for comedic effect.

The more Bianca thought about it, the more she realized that there was something a bit freeing about Courtney being straight. She was straight. There were lines that would never be crossed, ever. So it meant she was safe to flirt and have fun and it would never make her living situation complicated.

Win win, right?

Bianca looked into Courtney’s sparkling green eyes one last time before removing the arm from her shoulder, chuckles dying down.

***

Bianca suggested a stop at the grocery store on the way home, which Courtney realized was a great idea, since she had barely anything stocked, having chosen to eat most of her meals for the past few days in the cafeteria by their building.

Plus, she didn’t mind at all that they were extending their outing, finding Bianca to be both hilarious and fascinating. While Willam was occupied on her phone, Courtney hopped into the cart, beaming up at Bianca.

“Uh, I’m sorry, are your legs broken?” Bianca asked pointedly.

“Come on, please?! I wanna riiiiide,” she wheedled, and Bianca smirked at her.

“Oh, I can give you a ride.”

Courtney bit her lip, both hating and loving the way her stomach twisted every time she looked into Bianca’s brown eyes. It was thrilling, but also terrifying, like being on a rollercoaster--and Courtney loved rollercoasters. She was still a bit miffed at Willam for so adamantly proclaiming her straightness earlier, though she couldn’t really say why. It was true, of course, she was straight, but the way Willam said it so definitively was annoying, especially since she’d only just found out that Bianca was gay moments before.

All Courtney did know, for sure, was that she was having fun, so she decided just to enjoy herself and not stress about it.

They sped through the store, picking up pantry staples and some produce for the next couple of days, along with a few treats that Courtney insisted on...coconut water, dates, kale chips. Bianca pretended to be disgusted by all of it.

At one point, in the freezer aisle, Courtney found herself gazing up at Bianca, admiring again how thick and shiny her hair was. When Bianca leaned over the cart to toss in a package of frozen peas, Courtney reached up, fingering a lock gently.

“Is that your real hair color?” she asked.

“No,” Bianca said, “Not even close. Why, is that your real hair color?” She reached out, unceremoniously ruffling Courtney’s hair.

Courtney ducked and giggled, saying, “Almost! It’s...slightly enhanced.”

A wicked look passed across Bianca’s face as she said, “You know, there’s a way to check that.”

“Eyebrows?” Courtney asked, lashes fluttering innocently.

Bianca cackled gleefully, dark eyes dancing with joy, and said, “Yeah, eyebrows. That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Courtney bit her lip, feeling a surge of pride at making someone as funny as Bianca laugh so hard.

They were almost to the check-out when an employee asked tiredly for her to please get out of the cart.

“Oh yeah, sorry!” she said, scrambling to get up.

“Need a hand?” Bianca asked.

“Thanks.” Courtney let Bianca help her out, one hand holding the cart steady and the other on her waist. A faint blush colored her cheeks as she jumped down and found herself chest to chest with Bianca, close enough to smell her perfume, which was lovely--warm and smoky. It made Courtney want to lean in closer...

“Let’s go!” Willam screeched, slamming the cart into their legs.

“Soz Bill!” Courtney snapped out of her daze and headed for the registers, making sure to snatch a few bars of dark chocolate on the way, chuckling slightly at Willam’s mumbled “that’s so Aussie.”

It was still early when they got back to the apartment, and Courtney was too riled up to sleep, so she suggested opening a bottle of the wine that Bianca bought. Alaska was dozing, so they left her in peace while the three of them sat around Courtney and Willam’s room and chatted for a few more hours. They shared stories about their childhoods and families, generally getting to know each other--at least until Bianca’s eyelids began to look heavy and they sent her off to bed.

As Courtney finally snuggled down into her comforter, lightly buzzed and perfectly content, her last thought was how lucky she was, how wonderful her roommates were, how life-changingly amazing this year promised to be.

#rpdr fanfiction #bitney #willaska #bianca del rio #courtney act #willam belli #alaska thunderfuck #college au #lesbian au #slow burn #kind of #friends to lovers #fluff #off limits #just friends #veronica #albatross

[yourdeepestfathoms]

God Forgive Us All (part five; finale)

[Carrie AU]

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

(Read Anne as Courtney!Anne)

Tag list: @avmlife @shoujingshen

Word count: 12,566

TW: Blood and gore

-----------------------

-A Night We’ll Never Forget-

It was the opening night of Heathers: The Musical and the sun was just starting its descent in the sky, bleeding pastel pink across grey-blue clouds. There was no big storm in the forecast that day, just mist and fog, which was good because thunder and lightning might knock out the lights and ruin all the tech.

It was just one of those evenings so refreshing and peaceful that you HAD to be doing something nice. The sunset reached in through your window and dragged you towards it, flinging you out and out and out into the beautiful, mind-numbing twilight. You had to drive or hike or hang out with friends because an evening this perfect may never come again.

And sometimes you had to make sure an overly-cautious girl got a taste of such exhilaration because the mist was glittering and the sky was glorious and the setting sun probably that nothing bad could possibly happen. 

  “Do you think she’s okay?” Anne asked as she and Cathy sat outside the ivy-swathed house. She’d been more worried about their girl than herself since the moment she woke up, and for a good reason, too. Cathy didn’t blame her.

  “I’m sure she is,” Cathy answered.

  “Yes, but she’s only had a few days of rehearsals. What if she—”

Cathy set a hand in her girlfriend’s and squeezed it. “Take a breath, Annie.” She said. “She’s proved to us that she knows what she’s doing. Hell, she probably knows my lines better than I do! I’m sure she’s doing just fine.”

( “I can see your dirty pillows,” Bernadette said bitterly.

  “They’re breasts, mama.” Joan corrected, not looking up from where she was testing necklaces to her skin tone. Jewelry was few and far between in the house, so she had to make do with whatever she could find because something told her that the theater wouldn’t want her touching any of their accessories with her ‘grimy freak hands’ if she didn’t have to. “Every girl has them. Even you. And I’m just in a tank top to get ready, but my costume will cover more.” She paused. “You’ll see that if you come. I have a spot reserved for you.”

Joan can already imagine herself onstage, boldly and amazingly belting out her lines and being watched in awe by hundreds of people. Even better than that, she could imagine her mother being there, eyes sparkling with pride, grinning widely, and at the end howling through the applause, “Did everyone see? That’s my daughter! My wonderful, glorious, marvelous baby girl, Joan! Oh, how amazing and talented she is! I am truly blessed to have her! The happiest mum in the whole entire world!!!!”

But, instead, Bernadette is shaking her head frantically, not at all looking proud or happy to be her mother at that very moment. 

  “No, no,” She said. “And you can’t go, either!”

  “It’s too late, mama,” Joan turned away from her mother and slipped on a jacket. “I’m going. My friends are expecting me.”

  “Friends?” Bernadette actually choked out a high pitched, startled laugh. “Is that really what you think those two women are to you, darling? I’m sure they care about you so very much. Do you think anyone would cry if your decapitated head was dropped in their hands? Admit it: nobody loves you the way you are except me. You are my baby. That’s always been true, and it always will be true.”

  “No, it’s not!!” Joan cried. Her powers pulsed like a racing heartbeat in her veins. “There are other people who like me! Miss Cathy and Miss Anne! Miss Aragon, too!” She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She didn’t want to blow her voice out before the show. “They aren’t like the others, mama. They’re good. I know they are.”

  “But wouldn’t they all change you if they could?” Bernadette said, causing a starling, uneasy revelation to zigzag through Joan. “They would strip away your lovely weirdness and reshape your mind until it’s to their liking. But I love every inch of you, my perfect darling little disaster.”

Would they do all of that? Joan wondered. Would Miss Cathy and Miss Anne and Miss Aragon change me if they got the chance?

For a moment, she was almost swayed to her mother’s side, but then she remembered something.

I wouldn’t blame them... I would want to change me, too.

  “I want to be normal,” Joan said defiantly. “So I wouldn’t care.” 

She turned away from her mother and marched into the kitchen to get a glass of water, but still couldn’t go past the crucifix without casting it a fearful look.

  “They’re all going to laugh at you!”

Something snapped in Joan’s chest.

  “NO!!” She roared.

She whirled around to her mother and extended a shaking hand, seizing Bernadette in her place. She bared her teeth in a flash of rage.

  “No, mama.” She said lowly. “Not this time. You aren’t going to ruin this for me.”

She telekinetically pushed Bernadette backward into the prayer closet as pieces of furniture rose into the air around her with her growing anger.

  “You’re going to—stay in there—until I leave.” Joan said. She jerked her head, and the door slammed shut.

  “Johanna! Stop this at once!! Stop this devilry!!”)

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Anne nodded. “She’s going to be okay.”

  “Come on, let’s go get her.”

The two of them stepped out of the car and walked up the front porch. When they knocked on the door, they heard a giant crash from within the house, like the roof had just caved in. They exchanged looks, suddenly worried again. Joan peeked out a moment later.

  “Hey!” Anne greeted her with a smile. “Everything okay? Did your ceiling just collapse or something?”

  “...Yes.”

Cathy blinked. Anne laughed.

  “Cool. Can I see?”

  “...No.”

Joan slid outside, and, for a brief second, Cathy and Anne could see into her house at all the furniture strewn on the ground. The door shut quickly, and Joan smiled up at them.

  “Come on!” She said with a new bout of eagerness. “Come on! Come on!”

  “Someone’s excited,” Cathy chuckled as they all walked to the car.

  “We’re coming, darling,” Anne called at the same time.

  “Darling!” Joan echoed in a gleeful voice. “Darling! That’s me!” She hurled herself at Anne and latched onto her, nuzzling into her chest.

  “Oof—” Anne staggered backward with a laugh. “Easy there, kiddo. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Joan giggled. “You’re not THAT old!” She gave Anne one more nuzzle before galavanting her way over to the car and leaping inside, leaving Anne and Cathy exchanging amused looks.

The drive to the theater was spent with Joan murmuring her lines to herself and fidgeting in the backseat, and upon arriving, she practically flew inside, darting straight to the dressing room she was getting to use. She immediately got to applying makeup and fixing her hair, but she appeared to have a hard time doing everything correctly, so Cathy stepped in while Anne went to go get ready.

It didn’t take long for Joan’s anxiety to kick in. As Cathy was pinning back locks of her long blonde hair, she could feel her start to tremble.

  “Joan?” She asked. “Everything okay, sweetheart?”

  “Y-yeah,” Joan stammered. “Just a little n-nervous.”

Cathy smiled sympathetically at her in the mirror. “I know that feeling. It’ll be okay, I promise. I’ll be right there with you the whole time.”

  “N-nervous about Dead Girl Walking,” Joan mumbled, fidgeting with her jacket sleeve.

Cathy barked a laugh. “Yeah, me too.” She admitted. “I’ll be more hands-off, okay? I won’t grab you anywhere.”

  “B-but won’t that r-ruin the scene?” Joan looked up at her.

  “Your comfort is more important to me than the enjoyment of the audience.” Cathy told her. “It’ll all be okay. You’re gonna do great.”

There was a knock on the doorframe. The two of them turned to see Aragon in the doorway, smiling. Cathy greeted her, then slid out of the room to get ready. 

  “Miss Aragon,” Joan said. “You look so pretty!”

Aragon laughed lightly, gazing down at the suit she was wearing. “Thank you, Joan. You look beautiful.”

  “Oh—thank you.” Joan blushed. “Although I don’t, not really, but thank you anyway.”

A small frown twitched momentarily on Aragon’s lips before she wiped it off. “I just wanted to come and check on you. How are you feeling? You look like you didn’t sleep at all.”

Even with foundation and blush on her face, the dark bags shadowed under Joan’s eyes were still visible. It was worrying, but what came out of Joan’s mouth next was even worse.

  “Oh, yeah,” She said. “I was just a little nervous. But I’m okay. Trust me, I’ve stayed awake longer. When I was fifteen, I was having these awful nightmares and got so scared of them that I stopped sleeping. Whenever I would start to nod off, I put this cross that my mother would—heat up—” She faltered for a moment, wincing at something that didn’t have to do with the current story, but hurried to continue, “—and uhh, I would heat it up and press it to my skin until the pain woke me up.” And then she rolled her sweat pants up enough to reveal an old, cross-shaped blister on her thigh.

Aragon shuddered, staring at it in horror before it was concealed again. It was awful that nightmares could push a child to such an extreme, but she had to give Joan some props for her bravery to burn pain into the body that betrayed her by daring to be tired. But that didn’t erase how sickening it was.

  “Oh, Joan—”

  “Oh dear,” Joan frowned at her, cutting her off. “You’re getting that funny look on your face again. The one you and Miss Anne and Miss Cathy make when you get all concerned.” She tilted her head, then gently touched Aragon’s hand. “It’s okay, Miss Aragon, trust me. If I’m willingly telling you about it, then it’s not that bad.”

That didn’t comfort Aragon at all because it meant that Joan had gone through things even worse than burning herself to avoid nightmares.

But Aragon nodded, not wanting to stress the girl out by prodding her, especially right before a major performance.

  “Alright,” She said in a half sigh.

Joan gave her a wry smile.

  “Well, you better get into your costume,” Aragon said, standing up. 

  “Oh!” Joan jumped to her feet. “R-right!”

Aragon smiled at her. “When you’re done, come down to the wings to get your mic set up. And break a leg! You’ll do great, honey!”

Joan nodded and turned to her first costume once Aragon left the room: a long brown skirt with flowers on it, a cream shirt, and a blue jean jacket. She wore her primary costume, a blue checkered skirt and a lighter blue cardigan with an azure undershirt, underneath it for quick change reasons. After putting everything on, she was about to walk out when she paused and looked at herself in the mirror.

She...did look pretty. 

Except for—

  “Sorry, mama,” Joan whispered, taking off her cross necklace and setting it aside on the makeup table. 

The backstage was a mess when she stepped down the staircase leading up to the dressing rooms. Joan felt like she’d been flung into a war movie with the amount of running around and screaming that was going on around her, and she could already feel beads of sweat forming on her forehead in the hot, thick air of the wings. Footsteps trampled heavily, as people fretted over costumes, over makeup, over props…

Over the fact that the theater freak was playing the lead role.

And over the fact that one of their actors was lying on the ground, writhing and wailing in agony so loud that the early birds already filing into the house could probably hear.

  “What’s going on?! What happened?!” The sound director squawked, flapping over. She was done up in way too much makeup and jewelry for someone who wasn’t going to be seen by the audience. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM?!”

  “I-I don’t know!” A stagehand cried. “He-he fell and—”

  “Oh god—” Another said in a gag. “That is bad.”

  “Kinda cool,” Commented her friend, earning her an elbow to the ribs. “Ouch! Unnecessary!”

The actor on the floor howled.

  “This is a catastrophe,” A techie muttered to the far left, the boy shaking with visible distress, running a hand through his newly greasy locks. His eyebrows were drawn in considerably more than usual, and he looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. A girl at his side looked remarkably similar in her emotional state but didn’t move from her place of wrapping a mic around Cleves.

The whole cast was crowded together, in various stages of mentally prepared, gawking down at someone that Joan couldn’t see. There was still an hour until the show began, but in theater, an hour was essentially five minutes if you were stressed out enough. And clearly, everyone was. Maggie and Kitty didn’t stand far apart, despite Kitty’s current position of being fretted over by two technicians, who were trying very hard not to look over at the current commotion. Russel and Luke, the Kurt and Ram, looked like the epitome of the American jock stereotype- white shirts with varsity jackets slung over them, jeans too baggy and hair too messy for the current decade. Cleves looked as calm as she always was, seeming out of place considering the hectic nature of the environment, and Anne was the only actor who didn’t look nervous about performing with Joan or about what was going on. In fact, she gave her a small, warm smile that Joan couldn’t help but return.

But then the injured actor cried out again, and she snapped back into awareness.

She stepped towards the crowd. Several people saw her coming and cleared off quickly. One stagehand that was even younger than her nearly fainted at the sight of her. She brushed the arm of a background actor, and he shuddered so badly she genuinely thought she had hurt him. 

Oh. She realized grimly. They don’t just think I’m a freak. She frowned. They think I’m a monster. They’re SCARED of me.

Anger boiled up inside of her for a moment, but she stamped it down. She didn’t love that burbling feeling of vengeance rising within her. She just wanted to hug them, all of them, and tell them not to be scared, that she wasn’t scary at all, not anymore—not ever. She wanted to be their friends. Because this performance was going to be the birth of New Joan, Ordinary Joan, Loved Joan, and everyone was going to be begging on their knees to be her best friend by the end of it. 

That thought made her absolutely giddy, and she nearly did a happy dance but managed to stop herself. Doing such a thing wouldn’t be appropriate at the moment, especially when she was gazing down at a moaning, groaning, broken-looking young man.

He was lying at the bottom of the Stairs of Death, as they’re called, sprawled in a position that looked extremely uncomfortable. But not as uncomfortable as the angle his right arm is bent into. With a wince, Joan realized it looked slightly similar to how her arm had looked when she got pushed down the staircase at school.

It was Mike, the man who played both JD’s dad and the principal—and was the only actor they had who knew those parts since it never occurred to anyone that even minor parts may need understudies.

  “Fuck!” Cried the sound director. “What happened?!”

  “I think he fell,” Observed Cleves calmly.

Mike groaned as if to prove that theory.

  “Oh, you bumbling idiot!” The sound director snapped at the poor man.

  “Hey!” Joan barked. “Don’t be mean! It’s not his fault!”

Everyone looked at her in surprise, including Mike, who halted his process of squirming miserably to blink up at her. Even she was a little shocked. Wasn’t she supposed to hate these people? 

  “It definitely is his fault,” The sound director hissed. “Or is it yours? Did YOU do this?”

Well, she definitely hated her, that’s for sure.

  “I bet she did,” Maggie said helpfully, and Kitty nodded in agreement at her side.

And she absolutely hated those two.

  “No, I didn’t!” Joan said, wounded. “I don’t hurt people!”

  “Yeah, I can vouch for her, Rachel,” Anne spoke up. “She wasn’t anywhere near the steps when Mike fell.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes at Joan, not really believing Anne’s words. “Well,” She dropped the accusations for the moment. “What do we do?”

  “Call 999.” Anne said.

  “No!” Rachel yelped. “We can’t! We don’t have an understudy for him!”

  “So you expect him to perform with a broken arm?” Anne struck back. “Look at him! He can’t even sit up!”

Joan peered closer at Mike’s arm and noticed that it was at an abnormal position slightly above the shoulder. He wasn’t moving it at all, either, like all connection to the rest of the body had been cut off...or displaced.

  “It’s not broken,” She said. “It’s dislocated.”

All eyes turned to her again. She quickly went on, pointing at the injured arm, “Look at the way he’s moving. His arm should be moving like that, too, but it isn’t even twitching. Plus, it’s not swollen and bruising. And listen to his screams—he’s in a lot of pain. Broken bones burn, but they wouldn’t cause that much distress.” She looked around at all of them, then said again, “It’s dislocated. And I know how to fix it.”

Mike looked ill at the thought of her touching him, and she barely managed to keep herself from giving him an injured look. Everyone else, however, weren’t spared from it when they noisily began to get suspicious and skeptical of her information. 

  “How do you know that?” Asked one stagehand with a bowl haircut.

  “I’ve had my arm broken and dislocated before,” Joan answered, remembering the time a bully shoved her against the wall hard enough to jar her left arm out of its socket when she was fourteen. “And I was able to help myself. I know what to do.”

  “Why should we trust you?” Said another stagehand warily, eyeing Joan as if she thought she was going to rip Mike’s arm off and beat him with it.

  “What other choice do you have?” Joan said. “Unless you’d like to go one without a father for JD and a coach.”

Somehow, to all of them, that alternative seemed even worse than her tearing off an innocent man’s limb and pummeling him with it. Mike realized this, too, and didn’t look very happy about it, giving them all an injured look.

  “You’re right,” A guitarist from the pit said. “We should probably trust her.”

  “What?” Kitty said sharply. “Are you alright?”

  “Of course,” The guitarist said, giving Kitty a weird look. She tipped her head towards Joan. “We should let her try, right? And if she fails, well, that’ll give us more of a reason to despise her.”

Joan kind of wished she had left that part out, but appreciated the trust nonetheless.

  “Yes,” She said, deciding to appeal to their hatred and fear for just a moment. “If I make him worse, you can—you can hate me all you’d like. Better yet: I’ll quit. How does that sound?”

That seemed like a dream come true to several of the younger cast members and techies, but a nightmare to Anne, who gave Joan a wide-eyed look and shook her head at her. Joan smiled gently and lightly touched her shoulder, then approached Mike. He tried to wiggle away when she crouched down next to him.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” She whispered to him, and he looked up into her bright silver eyes. He must have seen something in her because he nodded a moment later and stopped moving. “Thank you.” She paused. “Okay, well—slight change to what I said. This WILL hurt, but it’ll make you better, I promise.” 

Mike went even paler but just nodded again. Joan thanked him again, then gently took hold of his arm, wracking her memory to remember how she had relocated her arm. That was the time, she recalled, that she realized that she had to start nursing her own wounds because nobody else was going to do it for her.

What am I doing? She thought. I’m the problem, not the solution.

But then she looked down at Mike’s pained eyes and saw herself in the deep shade of blue—hurt and wanting help. So, she took a deep breath and pushed upwards.

Mike let out a yelp of shock and pain, jerked, and then stopped. Joan pulled her hands back quickly so he could see his normal-looking shoulder. He tried to move it, wincing when it bent at his muscles’ command, then gave her a look of surprise and awe. She smiled at him.

  “All done!” She beamed, then turned her head to the crowd around her. “See? I did it!”

Nobody gave her a hug or cheered for her success, but she did get several appraising and approved looks, which was good enough for her. 

  “It’s probably gonna hurt for a few weeks,” She said to Mike. “Definitely take painkillers before the show, and don’t do anything crazy with it if you don’t have to.”

Mike nodded. “Th...thank you, Joan.” He said.

Something blissful fluttered inside her stomach. Someone said her name! In a way that wasn’t disgusted or full of hatred!!

  “Good work, kiddo,” Anne praised Joan when she returned to her side. “You’re amazing.”

Joan blushed. “Thanks.”

She was SO going to have friends now. These people have seen that she’s not dangerous! Well, unless you consider unnatural psychic powers as dangerous, but that can just be a perk to being her friend! She can move things with her MIND!! Maybe even do more things. Maybe she could help people.

She glanced down at her hands and wondered about all the amazing things she could do with her powers. She could help major constructions by lifting heavy objects without breaking a sweat. She could save people from burning buildings by levitating them when they fall. She may even be able to cure cancer and end world hunger!! Of course, telekinesis couldn’t do that, but maybe she had other abilities that could. 

She could be a hero.

And then Kitty’s gazed snapped over to her, and Joan didn’t feel like a hero at all. Just a worm trapped beneath the talons of a hawk. She instinctively shifted uncomfortably, tugging on her skirt to distract herself. Even after helping a man with his dislocated shoulder, Kitty and Maggie still looked at her as if she had just murdered their parents in front of them.

  “Joan, you look…” Kitty trailed off with a sneer, still staring at Joan’s slightly pudgy legs and the thigh highs that concealed them. 

  “Great.” Anne cut in, glaring at her cousin in some sort of warning. “She looks great.”

  “Not the word I would have used,” Kitty muttered, and Maggie giggled obnoxiously at her side.

Joan grit her teeth, but her flash of anger jolted away with a stagehand shoved the notebook she needed for the opening number into her hands silently. He glanced up at her for just a moment, then wrinkled his nose and scurried off to help someone else.

Joan felt more and more uncomfortable as she was prepared for the show. A few crew members, ones that still thought she was repulsive even after helping Mike, hadn’t wanted to touch her to put her mic on, so Cathy did it when she came down, apologizing to Joan softly for how stupid people were being. Joan, however, was too focused on all the stares she was getting. Out of the corner of her eyes, she swore she could see the director’s jaw drop when he saw her for the first time. He, at the very least, blinked twice at the sight of Joan, and the girl felt a small ounce of victory from that resolution. Of course, that good feeling was immediately washed away when the reality of the situation set in.

In less than five minutes, she was going to be performing in front of hundreds of people, some of which probably knew her and hated her, having not studied the script or the blocking/choreography with the intention of playing the character she was about to parade around as. And then, if that wasn’t enough, she had to have fake sex on stage with another woman and probably kiss her and attempt to have some sort of chemistry with her despite her girlfriend also being in the production. And, most importantly, her mother wasn’t there to support her through it all.

Holy fuck. Joan was going to die.

The stage lights soon dimmed, and she could hear Aragon’s voice over the intercom, reminding people to switch off their mobile devices. Joan wished that she heard Aragon say that a fire had started in the building so she wouldn’t have to step on stage, but no such luck. She felt someone nudge her forward onto the darkened stage as soon as the audience quietened, and Joan sucked a breath in. This was it.

  “Break a leg!” Anne whispered somewhere from the darkness of the wings.

Joan took one more big breath.

And then she walked on stage.

She could barely feel her legs as she walked, as though she was working on autopilot.

    “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name,” Joan murmured to herself, far too quietly for the mic to pick up (she didn’t even think it was on yet), “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” She stood in the position she had seen Jane stand in so many times before. “Amen.”

There was no turning back now, was there? She was in this for the long run. She was really doing this. As everyone else settled into position, she prepared herself to recite the lines she knew so well but never imagined she would be speaking.

  “September 1st, 1989. Dear diary...” 

As the music kicked in, the stage lights flickered on, nearly blinding her. She suddenly much preferred her nice, dark pit, but the bright light blocked out her vision of most of the audience, which she was so very thankful for. She couldn’t hear a single snicker or a mumble of disapproval, her voice didn’t crack, and she stood in the correct position. 

Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as she thought.

The beginning of ‘Beautiful’ passed like a dream, though she struggled to contain her giddiness as stage fright slowly melted away, and she fully got into her role. It was a lot different being part of the ensemble, actually hearing lines being spoken directly in her face, than being in the pit where she just vaguely watched and frantically played music. It was only when she had to speak to confront Kitty that she felt her nerves kick in.

Because Kitty was looking at her like she wanted to fucking kill her.

Kitty, like Cleves and Anne, was dressed in a preppy, rich girl outfit from the ’80s, looking like an absolute vision in yellow. And she was glaring at Joan as though the other was wearing a trash bag, and Joan wasn’t wholly convinced it was a character choice. 

So much for McNamara being the slightly good Heather.

Something about the look in Kitty’s eyes, though, was different than her usual leer. This seemed...personal. Even when Kitty was saying compliments to Joan’s character, there was an edge of spite that hadn’t been there before Joan had switched roles.

Joan’s musing was cut short by Cleves’ voice and Kitty’s hand brushing over her chest.

  “And you know, this could be beautiful.” Cleves sang in her traditional deep bellow, a sardonic hint in her voice that only a few seemed to catch. 

Kitty’s hand on Joan’s chest trailed across her body as Cleves sang, putting a cold emphasis on every time she said “beautiful”, as though pointing out to Joan that she was speaking something far from the truth. Joan barely had time to register this before she croaked out her line and was ushered backstage for her quick change.

Joan’s protective shroud—the skirt and cream shirt and coat—was ripped off of her before she had a chance to shrug it off. Her hair was brushed painfully into a more pristine style and more makeup was applied roughly before being shoved back onstage so hard she nearly fell flat on her face. She regained her balance, luckily not being seen by the locker set pieces, and waited.

What was with Kitty? Was she cranky because Jane didn’t get to perform with her?

Joan ended up being absorbed in conspiracies internally the whole time she was on stage, unwillingly. She spoke her lines with conviction, and her singing didn’t falter, but she was still thinking. Even during the finale of the opening number, where she had to hold what she knew was the Note of Death, she still had these thoughts in her mind. She barely even had time to gauge the audience’s reaction to her costume change or see if they realized who she was before the song ended and the dialogue began. Joan zoned out for most of it, reciting the lines she knew, until-

  “Are we going to have a problem?” Cleves’ bold statement cut through the silence. Joan realized this was the start of the second number, and she swallowed thickly when she saw a menacing smirk stretch on Kitty’s lips. Her behavior the whole time had been off, and this was a song in which the entire aim was to push Joan around and show a display of power.

Cleves continued, saying her lines, which were laced with spite and malice towards a teenage girl who was just trying to save the show they’d worked so hard on. Joan didn’t have to do much other than accept the mild shoves off of the three Heathers; Cleves grinning, Anne smiling apologetically, and Kitty pushing Joan so hard she was sure there would be bruises. The blonde could not wait for the song to end, and as soon as she heard the roaring applause, she wanted so badly to make a run for it and escape the abuse but knew she had to stay. She had to prove that she was worthy of being there. 

That she was just as good as them, if not better.

  “You shouldn’t have bowed down to the swatch dogs and the diet coke heads. They’re going to crush that girl.” A deep, honey-slicked voice broke through after the applause died down.

Joan turned reluctantly and saw Cathy sitting on the part of the set made to be a staircase in her character’s trademarked trench coat, looking through her fringe at her. Some of the anxiety eased its process of clawing up Joan’s insides when she saw a warm, comforting look flicker in Cathy’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as she thought after all. Cathy was there with her, and even with her face twisted into one of cunning and deception, Joan felt much more comfortable with her nearby. 

And then, something happened.

  “I didn’t catch your name,” She said further in the first scene with Cathy.

  “I didn’t throw it.” Cathy retorted smoothly, and Joan could see why Anne was so in love with her. 

Joan giggled giddily, tugging on her sleeves in a way she thinks a girl would react to such a comment, and was surprised to hear the audience erupt into coos and awws. She blinked at them in delight.

They thought...she was cute.

Nobody ever thought she was cute, certainly not hundreds of people watching her on a stage.

Happiness welled up from within her. She could feel her doubt starting to melt away even more. 

They liked her.

Joan couldn’t lie. Seeing Cathy fake fight two men in slow motion was something she was prepared for but didn’t expect it to be as amazing as it was. Joan wasn’t really paying attention to the scenes that didn’t concern her, conserving her efforts for when she was needed, but…damn. Cathy didn’t have to go off that hard, but she did anyway. 

As Joan sang and maneuvered around the stage in the way she’d seen Jane do countless times before, she could barely even look at Cathy as she had to touch the woman. She attempted to keep her touches brief, but she really wanted the audience to like her, so she committed to the role of a lovestruck teenage girl. She had to remind herself that it was just the choreography, that it was just a stupid, kinda boring song, that Anne definitely wouldn’t think she was stealing her girlfriend.

Most of the beginning parts passed by in a blur. Whenever Joan was rarely offstage, she was wiping sweat off of her face as best as she could without ruining her makeup, taking quick sips of water, and attempting to catch whatever breath she could. When she was onstage, she spoke with as much effort as she could, and whenever Cathy was with her, she always felt her voice rise with more power and conviction. It was noticeable, she realized when she caught glimpses of the impressed audience through the blinding glare of the stage lights.

Big Fun soon came along, and Joan danced with more energy than she ever had in her entire life. She was so wrapped up in singing and laughing and smiling that she didn’t even worry about the possibility that there may have been poison in the shot glass she had to drink from (there wasn’t, but you never know). She had never felt so free before, so young and careless and happy.

This—this was what freedom was like.

She never wanted it to end. She could perform Big Fun for a hundred years and not be tired of how bouncy and crude she got to be. But alas, the party scene soon came to a close, and her anxiety made itself known again deep in the pit of her stomach.

Dead Girl Walking was about as awkward as she expected. She stammered over her lines for the first time, but managed to keep her singing voice steady enough to not completely crack beneath the sudden surge of stress and embarrassment, and was suddenly glad her mother didn’t come because she surely wouldn’t have liked seeing her up there straddling another woman.

Cathy was gentle like she promised, and Joan was so very relieved. But still, she wasn’t sure how she felt about losing her first kiss to another female who was already taken by someone and quite a bit older than her.

But it was over now! It was okay! Dead Girl Walking was over, and Joan didn’t throw up all over Cathy from the anxiety. Although she really, really felt like she was going to near the end, but not anymore!! In fact, she felt pretty damn proud of herself.

Me Inside Of Me and Blue came and went without a problem, although Joan swore Kitty was a lot meaner than her character was meant to be during Blue. The younger girl looked at her as if she actually wanted her to get sexually harassed by a group of guys, which made Joan give her an appalled look. She forgot about that too, though, and moved on. She shouldn’t think so much about someone who hated her guts.

Our Love Is God was frighteningly beautiful. Joan wasn’t expecting her and Cathy’s voices to go so well together, but she found herself being entranced to their harmony. The audience was into it, too. Joan swore she could hear them cooing in awe.

Joan couldn’t help but squeal in glee when she got offstage for intermission. She was so wrapped up in celebrating her current success that she almost forgot to rehydrate until Cathy pushed a water bottle into her hand with a laugh.

  “I know you’re happy, sweetie,” She said, “but you need to drink some water.”

  “Water!” Joan yelped. “Right! Got it!” She quickly got to guzzling down the contents of the bottle.

  “Not that fast—!!”

Joan and Cathy both giggled. Out of the corner of her eye, Joan noticed Maggie roll her eyes, but Kitty continued to just stare at her with a weird look in her eye. When Maggie saw that Joan had noticed, she nudged her friend and they both bustled off further into the backstage area. Joan shrugged it off.

  “Hey, Joan,” Said a voice Joan didn’t recognize. “You’re, um, doing really good!”

Joan turned around and saw three stagehands standing there looking sheepish. She blinked at them.

  “Oh- thank you!” She smiled at them, and they all seemed surprised that she did. Then, they smiled back.

  “Yeah, your vocal range?” Another piped up. “It puts Seymour to SHAME!”

Joan blushed. “Don’t say that! She’s really good!”

  “But not as good as you!” The third said. “How did you get cast as the backup understudy? YOU should be in the all-star cast. YOU should be the main Veronica Sawyer.”

Joan felt dizzy from the flattery. She knew these three were trying to win her over with compliments because they were ashamed of their treatment of her, but she didn’t really care. She craved it. She wanted their uplifting words so badly that she didn’t even care if they apologized or not.

  “Thank you,” She said again modestly. “Really. That means so much to me.”

They grin at her brightly. One looked over his shoulder when a name was called.

  “Oh, gotta run,” He said. “Come on, guys. Break a leg for act two, Joan! Can’t wait to hear you sing again!”

  “Did you see that?!” Joan cried to Cathy once they were gone, shaking her co-star. “Did you? They were praising me! They said I was better than Jane! ME!!”

  “I’m so happy for you, sweetheart!” Cathy said. “I’m sure Anne is, too.”

  “Where is Anne?” Joan asked. She turned to a stagehand. “Hey, do you know where Anne is? I haven’t seen her at all during intermission.”

The stagehand looked a tad uncomfortable, but not because of Joan’s presence. He fidgeted for a moment, then said, “There was...an incident. Anne had to be thrown out. Her understudy is finishing up the show.”

Cathy and Joan’s eyes widened. 

  “What?” Joan said.

  “Thrown out?!” Cathy shrilled at the same time. “What did she do?!”

( “I should have known,” Aragon snarled, dragging the green-clad woman out the back door. “I should have known you were with Jane!”

  “No!” Anne cried, struggling fiercely. “Catalina, you don’t understand! There’s a-!!”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” Aragon roared. She shoved open the door and threw Anne to the ground. The bright moonlight illuminated her horrified facial features. “You are SICK, Anne Boleyn! You and Jane Seymour and your little weasel of a cousin! I knew you were going to try and ruin this for Joan! Well, I’m not going to let you. I hope the rats eat you out here!”

  “No, Catalina, wait!!” 

But it was too late. Aragon slammed the door shut and promptly locked it. Anne slammed on it and yelled as loud as she could, but nobody opened up. Every other entrance was locked and guarded by someone, too. 

Anne sunk to the cold asphalt, tried not to cry, and prayed to God that she hadn’t actually seen Jane Seymour and her boyfriend up in the rafters with a bucket of something poised over the stage.)

  “I don’t know,” The stagehand said with a useless shrug of his shoulders. “I just heard them screaming. Catalina seemed really mad about something.”

  “Goddamnit, Anne,” Cathy muttered, then caught the anxious look on Joan’s face. She gently touched her shoulder. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’ll be just fine. I’ll give Anne a very stern talking to tonight.”

Joan nodded, even cracking a small smile.

It wasn’t long before act two began and Joan had to enter again. She nearly burst into tears when the audience cheered and clapped when she stepped into view and she tried very hard not to beam at all of them.

They liked her. They really, really liked her!

My Dead Gay Son had Joan giggling throughout its entirety. At the same time, as she sang along and danced to the silly lyrics, a part of her wished her mother was like the dads in the song. She wished that she was as open-minded and accepting and less overzealous.

She wished she was there.

Bernadette would have been so proud of her, she just knows it. She would have been proud of her vocal range during Seventeen and funny, but on-point dancing in Shine A Light and rebellious voice when she yelled at Maggie after that song, which felt AMAZING, by the way. Especially when she actually saw the girl reel back slightly at her venom-flecked words. And then, there was the scene that sent Joan on cloud nine.

  “No! Stop!!” Joan yelled, darting across the stage and barreling into Kitty with enough force to actually send her sprawling to the ground. Watching the younger girl squirm on her side like a flipped-over turtle wasn’t something that Joan had always wanted to see until that moment.

  “Suicide is supposed to be a private thing!” Kitty whined in a woebegone voice, but her eyes reflected great hatred for Joan. Definitely not a good acting choice in Joan’s opinion- the front row was gonna notice that and be confused.

  “Throwing your life away to be another statistic in the USA Today is probably the least private thing I can think of,” Joan rattled off perfectly.

  “But what about Heather? And Ram and Kurt?” Kitty replied.

  “If everyone jumped off a bridge, young lady, would you?” 

  “Probably,” Kitty mumbled, and then gave Joan a fierce look that said, “But not without pushing you off first.”

  “If you were happy every day of your life, you wouldn’t be human. You’d be a gameshow host.” Joan told her, letting her gaze slide off of her. There was something very satisfying about the look of powerless fury on Kitty's face, and she soon realized it was because Kitty couldn’t do anything to her onstage. She couldn’t harm Joan, or else she would ruin the show and be hated, too.

Kitty spits the fake pills (which were really just TicTacs) into her hands. Joan was sure she was grinding her teeth when she said, “Thanks for coming after me.”

And then they had to hug. Which was supremely awkward. And Kitty dug her claw-like manicured nails into Joan’s back, but Joan got to discreetly pull some of her hair, so it was okay. And it still didn’t ruin Joan’s good mood that lingered for the remainder of the show.

She was amazing. She was talented. She was a star. 

The audience liked her, Cathy and Aragon and Anne liked her, some of the crew were even starting to like her, too. 

Never before had Joan heard so many people cheering. Cheering for her.

When the lights came back on after the final number and cast members went out one by one for curtain call, the audience screamed and clapped so loudly. The background characters went first, then the parent characters, then the teachers, then the Heathers, followed by JD, and finally, it was Joan’s turn. 

She went out rather timidly at first, instinctively being way too modest, but then the audience shrieked, and she lurched into a gleeful run. 

She stood beside Cathy on the apron and Cathy gestured grandly to her, which made the audience scream again. Joan almost crumpled to her knees and thanked THEM when she bowed, but she managed to remain on her feet. She smiled at everyone watching, finally able to see them with the lights dimmed, and she hadn’t realized how many people there really were. And they all adored her performance. They were even on their feet cheering! For her! She got a standing ovation!! 

She squealed and leaped into Cathy’s arms, who laughed and twirled her around happily.

  “You did amazing, sweetheart!!” Cathy cried over the ending music. The others were dancing behind them blissfully. Joan started to dance a little, too, kicking her feet and swaying once she was released. Cathy laughed and brushed her cheek affectionately. “Look at you. You little bundle of energy.”

Joan giggled, blushing harder. “Thank you, Cathy.”

They clasped their hands together and did a final bow. The audience howled, and Joan smiled wider than she ever had in her entire life, for once not gripped by the fingers of anxiety that were usually wrung so tightly around her throat. She was free.

And then there was a hushed bark from above, a clatter of metal and creaking of rope, and the doors to the booth burst open just in time for Aragon and the other crew members to step out and watch as a bucket of blood dumped out right over Joan’s head.

Silence. 

One by one, the clapping stopped, the cheering died off, and the smiles fell until the only sound was the creak of the rope the bucket was attached to and the splattering of blood on the floor. Nobody moved, nobody breathed, nobody spoke a word.

But then Joan began to tremble.

And then cry.

And then scream.

She screamed a horrible, nightmare-haunting scream that reverberated throughout the auditorium and jammed itself into the ears of the audience and cast alike. She brought up her shaking hands to hug her blood-soaked body tightly, continuing to shriek and keen as she did so. Blood was covering her entire frame, sliding down her face and mingling with tears, soaking into her hair, washing her blue costume an awful shade of purple-red. She screamed and screamed and screamed, staring helplessly out at the audience. There, she saw a young boy clutching onto his mother and father with fear in his eyes. She saw a group of teenage boys, but none of them were laughing like their normal punk demeanor would imply they would do. She saw two girls clinging to each other, shaking. She saw another girl with her phone poised on her bloodied body. She saw Aragon among the crowd, staring up at her with a terrified expression, a hand clamped over her mouth. And Joan stared back at her—back at all of them—and sobbed, soaked to the bone by blood and misery and humiliation.

And then the video of Joan in the showers, completely naked, bleeding all over herself, crying in confusion flickered on the background sike. And people started laughing. Not everyone, but several cast members, Kitty and Maggie being the loudest, and dozens of other cruel audience members.

  “WHAT THE HELL?!” Cathy roared in outrage. She was the first to snap out of her frightened trance and began to twist around, looking for the culprit. “WHO DID THIS?!”

She found them in the wings: Jane Seymour and Henry Tudor, limbs entwined, cackling, disgustingly gleeful expressions on their faces.

  “JA—!!” Cathy went to scream at them, went to call attention to who had done such a thing, went to attack them both, but she was cut off by a creaking from up above and something heavy and hard slamming into her head.

The metal bucket fell first, and then Cathy, whose legs crumpled horribly inward beneath the weight of her body. She collapsed into an awkward sprawled position, and Joan darted down to her side in an instant, crying out her name. Joan shook the woman vigorously, begging her to wake up, but Cathy didn’t budge. A moment later, Joan sat back rigidly because her hands were covered in blood so dark it looked black. Blood that wasn’t there before.

There was a gash on the top of Cathy’s head, a crack in her skull, and some of her brains were pouring out onto the stage.

Joan noticed this, along with a flash of fragmented white bone, but, this time, she did not scream. Or cry out. Or whimper.

Instead, she sat there, staring levelly at Cathy’s ruined head with both hands laid flat on the trench coat that was slightly spattered with blood from the bucket. She was still crying, but something was different. A steely glint had entered her eyes and there was a strange, off tightness to the way she was sitting now.

There was no ripple or twitch that went over her face or any other real indication that there was anything wrong. It had just suddenly stopped weeping and gone very, very still.

Sometimes people did crazy things when they were worked up. There was always some dumb high school student who would think it was a good idea to threaten a bigger, much tougher upperclassmen just to show everyone how masculine he was or some poor sucker that got cocky enough to hit on that hourglass-figured woman in the tiny dress, only to find out that she was happily married to someone named Biff, who had biceps the size of small dogs and also happened to be standing right behind them.

That was normal. That was just people for you. Everyone had seen or heard of all of that and more.

But sometimes, you’d get the individual who had something else wrong with them. Something deep inside that was there way before even a bout of stubbornness flicked on their brain. They’d look perfectly normal because whatever was wrong with them, it was the sort of break that you could patch up with metaphorical glue and hide from the world as long as you had the presence of mind to do so. Then the anger or misery or pain melted that glue away and split the break wide open and let all those bad things that were locked away come boiling out like pus from an abscess.

And, out of nowhere, that same calm, smiley person who you were just talking to about the Red Sox-Yankees game could suddenly be pressing your head into the bar with their elbow in your throat, eyes alight with hysterical rage, all because you’d done something as small as accidentally scoot your drink a little too far in their direction.

And right now, somewhere behind those horrifyingly blank silver eyes and that tight frown, the bucket of blood and Cathy’s cracked open head had made those last strands of glue stretch out and break, like the little filament in a light bulb fraying and making that final ping! sound before it snapped and burned the bulb out.

There was something very, very wrong with Joan Meutas.

And she was a walking nightmare that nobody had seen coming.

An uncomfortable silence had descended on the audience and cast. They had all sensed it, too, that weird light that had turned on behind the blood-soaked girl’s eyes like the tiny, silvery start of a fire, flickering silently in the corner of a room.

Joan stood very, very slowly as if she were underwater, or her muscles were buckled into place. Her movements weren’t right- they were too twitchy and abrupt like a robot with rusted limbs. And her eyes—god, her eyes... They were wider than humanly possible.

She stood, dripping with blood, tears still streaming down her cheeks, and stared out at the audience. What they didn’t know was that she was sending her powers through the theater, locking every possible exit securely from the outside to ensure that none of them got out—especially those who were on the stage with her.

Her head jerked to the side, and a giant gash was opened up in the wall. The people shrieked in fright, and those who were suddenly lifted into the air screamed even louder. Judgment was nigh, and Joan was reading their souls. Those who were worthy of life, like the children and anyone who didn’t laugh at her, were thrown out of the hole in the wall. But everyone else, the girl still recording her, the boy who she could see had knocked up his girlfriend and dumped her once he found out, the man in the second row who had been in a hit-and-run, everyone onstage, even if they had been nice to her that day, were locked inside. She closed the hole, not caring if families had been separated (like the mother who wailed for her husband and the baby that she forced him to have, which both had been thrown out), switched a spotlight on her to a dark shade of crimson, and prepared for purification.

Starting with the ringleaders of her torture.

Kitty and Maggie screamed as an invisible force dragged them up to the front of the stage and made them kneel before the crowd. 

  “Please, please stop, Joan!” Kitty whimpered.

  “We’re sorry!” Maggie added fearfully.

Joan didn’t answer them. She didn’t even look at them, rather stared at the very edge of the stage with her impossibly wide eyes and those wretched sick lights flickering behind them, and that alone was enough to tell Kitty and Maggie that they were getting no mercy. But still, they begged.

  “We’re sorry!” Kitty said, now sobbing. “We’re so, so, so sorry! Please don’t hurt us!”

  “We’ll do anything!!” Maggie wheedled.

Joan glanced at her, then Kitty, and then Kitty’s hands began to raise against her will. Joan looked back down at the floor as Kitty started to squeal in fright and cry harder.

  “What are you doing to her?!” Maggie cried.

  “Please, please stop!!” Kitty howled at the same time. Her manicured yellow nails rested against her belly and pressed inwards, guided along by inhuman telekinetic strength. “Stop, stop, stop— no!!!”

With a sickening squelch, Kitty’s fingers breached her flesh and sunk knuckle-deep into her stomach. She threw her head back and screeched in pain, which became more and more gargled as her nails cut the gash open wider.

  “Mummy! Daddy!” She suddenly sobbed to the audience, blood pouring out of her mouth. “Help me, daddy! Mummy, please!”

Joan stiffened, and Kitty’s hands froze their process of emaciating. Kitty took a deep, sharp breath that was thick with blood, coughed a few times, then looked up at Joan, whimpering. Joan looked down at her, too, and it was only when she turned to look at the frozen video of her naked on the sike that Kitty truly realized all she had done to this girl.

  “I’m sorry,” Kitty whispered.

Joan stared at her for a long time, then closed her eyes, and Kitty ripped out her small intestines.

The audience shrieked. Horror rolled off of them in waves that crashed against the stage like a restless ocean during a thunderstorm. The tide of their terror mingled with Kitty’s blood, which was spilling out all over the apron as she fervently pulled out all her organs and showed everyone what she was truly like on the inside. 

Joan didn’t wait to watch her finish. She turned to Maggie with a wry expression and made her lift her hands to her mouth. Maggie shook her head and whimpered, her eyes becoming round holes of horror as she reached inside, grabbed her tongue, and pulled it out. 

Her body fell before Kitty’s did. It tumbled limply off the stage while she was still gagging and gargling; Joan was leaving her to choke to death—to suffer before she finally died.

Suddenly, from behind, Cleves lunged forward with her fists raised, screaming in fury. Joan didn’t even look at her as she wrenched an overhead pipe loose from up above and plunged it into her chest, pinning her to the ground.

Several actors began to scatter. The pipe flew around and jammed itself through the spot that connected the victim’s jaw to her neck. It went all the way through and left her nearly decapitated, spasming wildly on the ground before death overcame her and she stilled. A moment later, the pipe spun and sailed straight through a man’s stomach. 

By this point, pandemonium has erupted throughout the entire theater. Everyone was running around screaming, panicking, crying. They’re trampling over each other like caged cattle—and they very well may have been, because they were all going to burn like the filthy cows they all were.

Sparks shot out from wires and spotlights overhead. Fragments of tech equipment exploded everywhere and tongues of fire curled outward hungrily, roaring like angry dragons. Kitty finally teetered off of the stage, dead and very, very empty. The curtains went up in flames. A chunk of a spotlight slammed into a man’s face and killed him instantly. 

Fire. Everywhere. The destruction was instantaneous.

Joan stood amid the havoc as flames billowed out across the theater, consuming everything in its path. A few daring plumes attempted to wrap around her and devour her flesh, but it didn’t get very close before she pushed it away. It sizzled and hissed at her in a disgruntled manner, then sprinted off in another direction, giving up. Joan huffed in through her nose and then breathed in the acrid scent of burning flesh and smoke, but she willed herself not to cough. She would not show any sign of weakness, even to the lack of air around her. 

And then, there was a scream.

  “JOAN!!!!”

Joan jolted and stared out at the crowd in horror. There, she found Aragon, bleeding and bruised from being trampled, struggling forward. Towards her. 

Aragon was coming to her. 

Joan watched with wide eyes as Aragon pushed through screaming people and burning people and dead people, through wreckage and flames, just to get to her. 

Aragon stepped into a pool of Maggie’s blood and reached out a hand, which was speckled with burns from flying ashes and sparks. Joan stepped back, her foot squelching under what she thinks is Kitty’s kidney, but Aragon persisted, reaching out further, even if it meant pressing up against the pools of blood and organs on the stage. After a moment of resistance, realizing that she wouldn’t be hurt, Joan crouched on her weak knees and took Aragon’s hand.

  “Please,” Aragon whispered, squeezing tightly. “Please stop.”

Joan looked into her eyes and, despite the things she’s just done, still saw so much love inside of Aragon. Love she has for her. Love she wanted to shower her with. Love that could always be hers if she just stopped.

Joan smiled tightly, painfully, lifted Aragon in the air, and threw her outside through a weak part of the wall. She’ll be burned and may have a few broken or at least cracked bones, but she’ll be alive. Joan patched up the hole her body made and then turned to the rest of her victims. 

The girl who had recorded her when she got dumped with blood stumbled to the ground, her limbs turning crisp and black. Behind her, several people were screaming as their hair and clothing caught fire. Someone howled in pain from within a larger portion of the fire. A few people that were so charred that their gender couldn’t even be determined lay half in, half out of the flames, gasping as dark smoke filled their lungs. Dozens more were already dead in various stages of burning. And Joan watched them all in silence before turning and walking through the flames engulfed in the backstage, slipping out the back door.

The moon was high in the sky, glowing nearly as bright as the inferno that was the theater. Joan avoided the police and firefighters she could hear from the front by using the back alley and exiting out onto a dark, abandoned street. 

She could start to feel the burns she got from the fire more and more as she staggered home. Each step brought starbursts of agony sparking through her flesh, flashing bright colors behind her eyelids. She tried not to keep her eyes closed for too long.

Up ahead, a fancy red car pulled around the corner. The headlights glared against her, causing the blood drenching her body to glimmer like melted rubies. She narrowed her eyes. The car sped up, and she could soon see Jane and Henry through the windshield.

  “Fucking run her over, Henry!” Jane was screeching like a madwoman. 

Henry pressed on the gas. Joan stopped in the middle of the street and stared at him. The car began to wobble treacherously. Henry grunted in pain.

  “Henry? What the fuck?” Jane cried. A moment later, she watched as her boyfriend’s head imploded and showered her face in blood, flesh, bones, and brains. She screamed.

Joan tilted her head slightly, catching the car before it could crash. She ripped Jane out of the car and threw her to the asphalt.

  “You fucking monster!” Jane yelled. “You’re a fucking pig! What have you done?!”

Joan squinted at her, then jarred free any sharp objects she could locate on the car. They floated nearby, trained on Joan’s back.

  “What have you done?” Jane whispered again, this time with growing terror in her voice. “TELL ME!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! Wh...where is Kitty?”

The impromptu knives pierced Jane’s flesh. Jane let out a gargled scream, blood splattering from her lips. Joan watched her silently, then began walking away.

  “Joan!” Jane cried, feeling her guts leaking out from several different holes. “Joan, don’t you fucking leave me here!”

Joan kept walking, deaf to her words.

  “Joan!” Jane yelled again, this time with a voice that was thick with tears. “Joan, p-please, don’t leave me! I don’t want to die! Please, I’m sorry! Please don’t let me die!”

Joan doesn’t stop.

  “Joan?! JOAN!!!”

———

The house was deserted, lit only by moonlight filtering in through the windows and a few flickering candles. Joan trudged up the staircase, dripping blood as she went, and careened into the bathroom. She hauled her aching body over the edge, still in her Veronica Sawyer costume, and collapsed into the bathtub before it was even full with an inch of water. She remained curled up in a ball until it became too deep for her head to stay above the surface comfortably and she had to stretch out. She watched as the water around her turned a reddish-pink color with glazed, hollow grey eyes.

The tears came fast. She cried silently, not making a peep, not even shuddering. Her shoulders didn’t even shake. She just laid back in the tub and stared up at the dark ceiling, weeping in the dark bathroom. 

She wasn’t sure how much time passed after that, but she eventually heard the creak of the old floorboards in the hallway. A moment later, her mother appeared, illuminated by musty shafts of moonlight from the small bathroom window. 

  “Mama,” Joan croaked. Her voice was so weak.

Bernadette approached slowly, but her fear of being attacked diminished when she realized that Joan was in no condition to attack anyone. She just lay there in the tub, shivering and crying, surrounded by bloody water. Tears streamed down her ashen face, which was still drenched in coagulated streams of blood. There were yellow-brown, painful-looking burns spattered on her shoulders, neck, and upper back. 

She looked utterly pathetic. 

Bernadette crouched beside the bathtub. Joan strained her burned neck to look at her.

  “What happened at the—” The pitiful thing couldn’t even form a complete, coherent sentence. Her voice died off halfway through and didn’t come back.

  “The Lord says thou shalt not suffer,” Bernadette said.

  “They called me—monster—mama,” Joan said with great difficulty, but even then her sentence was choppy and missing words that had been so mumbled that they were indescribable. She was so disorientated and out of it that she looked close to near unconsciousness.

And then she noticed the bloody water she was submerged in. 

It was like a switch being flipped. Only then did Joan seem to realize what had been and still was coating her body. She let out a strangled, high-pitch whimper and looked helplessly up at her mother.

  “P-please t-tell me what h-h-happened,” She begged, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “You were weak, Joan.” Bernadette said, plucking away a bloody lock of hair that had been glued to her daughter’s face. “I told you your sin would find you.”

  “I can’t remem—remember.” Joan squeaked out. 

But she could, clear as day could she remember killing all those people. She was just too dazed to firmly grasp the situation.

  “H-h-help me.” She begged. “Mama—help me.”

Bernadette looked down at her for a long time, studying her bloody child, then said, “Let’s pray.” She cupped Joan’s wet face. “Say it with me: lay me down to sleep.”

  “L-lay me—lay me d-d-down to—sleep,” Joan choked out.

   “And pray the Lord,” Bernadette said. 

  “A-and pray—the Lord—my s-soul—” Joan struggled. “My soul—to kee—” The rest of the word was gargled when she was shoved roughly under the bloody bathwater.

Joan’s reaction was instant. She began to squirm and struggle, splashing water out everywhere, but she was much too weak and small and frail to fight her mother, who held her down firmly. But still, she screamed and she cried and she swallowed down bloody water until she couldn’t anymore.

Joan’s thin little body began to still in the tub, but her mind still flickered. Blackness was glazing over her head, tugging her into a peaceful void, and she leaned into its serene coldness. But not without breaking the window and sending a jagged piece of glass straight into her mother’s throat.

———

After watching the theater go up in flames and losing Cathy, Anne didn’t think the day could get any worse. But then she drove to the Meutas house and found the mother with her neck cut open wide and the daughter submerged in a bathtub full of bloody water and things turned to hell. 

Anne lurched forward with a cry of shock, pulling Joan out of the tub. She pressed her ear against the girl’s chest and barely heard the flutter of a heartbeat. What she could hear, though, was the sloshing of water inside of lungs.

  “God, please do NOT let her die,” Anne muttered, her nails digging into Joan’s forearms. “Please don’t let her die.”

She released her vice grip, and jewels of blood drops bloom from the contact area. That’s the least of her concerns, though.

Her fingers move to pinch shut Joan’s nose and open her mouth. Remembering very vague lessons of revival, Anne began to give the tiny girl CPR.

The first attempt did not work.

  “If you die- if you abandon me too- I WON’T forgive you! You hear me? I won’t!”

Joan’s features remain horribly pale.

Anne is shaking all over. The thought of this little girl dying is utterly terrifying.

She tried again, forcing air into Joan’s lungs and pressing on her chest.

Nothing. 

Joan doesn’t stir.

  “Please, Joan, please just breathe. Please come back, I-I need you!”

Once more.

Nothing.

Tears are gathering in Anne’s eyes.

  “Breathe, damnit! Don’t you dare die on me! Do you hear me? Listen to me, young lady! JOAN!!!”

Anne’s fists come down on Joan’s stomach, and water is spit up into her face.

Anne fell backward, clawing at her eyes as if she thought she had been sprayed with acid. In front of her, she can hear horrid coughing and wheezing, but also breathing. Joan was breathing and alive.

Alive and very, very shaken.

  “MAMA!!!”

Joan threw herself at her mother’s corpse before she had even fully recovered from her coughing fit. She smothered her face against her mother’s chest, and it came back red with fresh blood when she pulled away.

  “Why?!” She shrieked at Anne. “Why did you bring me back?!” 

  “You were going to die!” Anne said.

  “Maybe I WANTED to die! Have you ever thought about that?!” Joan held tighter to her mother, weeping. “Why couldn’t you just leave me alone? N-none of this would have happened...”

  “I—” Anne faltered. “I’m sorry.”

Joan’s body shuddered and she grit her teeth. An unseen force coiled around Anne’s body and suspended her in the air tightly. It felt as if the atmosphere was crushing her.

  “Look what you turned me into.” Joan whispered.

  “P-please don’t hurt me,” Anne begged.

  “Why not?” Joan asked, a pained smile tugging on her bloody lips. Tears start to roll down her cheeks again. “I’ve been hurt my whole life.”

Anne stared at her in horror, realizing it was true. The girl before her had been hurt more than she ever had been in her entire twenty-seven years of life.

How has Joan lived with so much pain inflicted on her tiny little body?

Joan bent over her mother and whimpered against her bloody shirt. She kept nuzzling into her chest, keening softly, and then looking up at her mother’s face, as if she was hoping her affection and presence would wake her up. When it didn’t work, she tried again and again and again, and it was the saddest thing Anne had ever seen in her entire life.

  “I killed my mama,” Joan whispered. “I want her back...”

It was awful to see a child bound to such a witch of a woman. Anne knew this lady had hurt Joan severely, and yet Joan still loved her. 

A crack suddenly zigzagged through the wall. Anne managed to jerk her head around to see several other cobwebs of crevices splinter through the walls around them. The earth began to shake without stopping, a continuous tremor that jarred Anne’s teeth in her head and made her feel as though the floor was about to drop out from under all of them.

  “Joan!” Anne cried. “We need to leave!”

  “No,” Joan held firmly to her mother’s corpse, curling against it loyally. “I’m not leaving.”

  “Joan, please!” Anne begged. “I can’t lose you, too!”

That made Joan look up.

For just a moment, Anne felt a glimmer of hope when Joan sat up slightly, but then she looked back down at the corpse and the costume she was still wearing and crumpled right back into a fetal position. Anne then realized that she didn’t just want to stay with her dead mother—she was immobilized by pain and grief and trauma.

Joan wanted to die.

And there was nothing Anne could do to stop her.

  “Goodbye, Miss Anne,” Joan whispered, smiling weakly up at her. She was curled into a tiny ball under her mother’s arm with her head on her chest. The tears running down her cheeks didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. “I’m glad—I got to know you.”

And then, Anne is thrown out through the wall by a psionic blast.

She tumbled, rolled, spun through the air in a deathly freefall before she’s caught again and gently set on the grass. She bolted up instantly and watched through her tears as the house was swallowed by the earth, devouring the walls and the floors and the furniture and that awful crucifix Anne had seen in the kitchen until there was nothing left to mourn. 

Joan Meutas was dead, and no amount of praying would bring her back.

———————————————————

  “What’s mama doing?” The auburn-haired six-year-old asked, peeking out from the backseat. Her red-headed toddler sister burbled in curiosity at her side. “Where ARE we?”

  “Just...a place, Mary,” Aragon answered, gripping the steering wheel tightly. She tried to take deep breaths, but she still began to scratch at the pale burn scar that wrapped around her upper back and shoulders- a constant reminder of that night. She could feel tears start to prick in her eyes like hot needles. She didn’t know how Anne was out there.

It’s been five years since the West End Massacre, and Anne and Aragon alike were still both reeling. One hundred and twenty-seven people had died that night by the wrath of a tortured child. And, after a long time away from London, they finally decided to visit the grave of that child.

  “JOAN MEUTAS BURNS IN HELL” was scrawled across the tombstone in bright red spray paint. Anne read it over and over and over again, her nose twitching with disgust. She can feel her body shaking and she tried her best to stamp down her nerves. She’s thirty-two, goddamnit, and it was five years ago. So why was she still clinging to the memories of a girl she knew for six days?

She set down the bouquet of white roses at the grave and stepped back. Standing on the property of the old Meutas house felt wrong like Bernadette Meutas might claw her way out of the dirt and pull her down to hell. She shivered, then bowed her head, trying to pray, but prayers only made her feel sick nowadays. 

  “Damnit,” She sighed, rubbing her face slowly. When she looked up again, she saw something in the nearby trees...a raven with patchy plumage that reflected rainbows across the black feathers in the sunlight. It tipped its head at her, cawed once, then flew off in a flurry of sparkling ebony.

  “I have daughters now,” Anne whispered. “If you care. Probably not, but...” She kicked a pebble. “Their names are Mary and Elizabeth. They’re wonderful. I love them with all my heart.” She paused, her voice softening. “I miss you.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. And then another. And then another.

  “Catalina does, too.”

Another beat of silence. Anne sniffled, trying to wipe away any more tears, but they just kept coming.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t visit you. You must be so lonely.”

Silence. In her head, Anne begged, Please. Please say something. Move something. Show me that you’re still there.

  “I miss you,” She whispered again. 

When she got no reply of any kind, she hiccuped. Which built into a whimper. Which built into a sob. 

Anne began to sob, sinking to her knees. She dug her fingers into the gravel and rubble surrounding the vandalized tombstone, relishing the feeling of flint and rocks scraping against her skin. She shivered and shuddered, unable to calm herself because waves upon waves of bottled-up grief and guilt were slamming against her at max force. All she could do was kneel there and cry and cry and cry until she couldn’t cry anymore and just gasped pathetically.

  “You were amazing, Joan, I hope you know that.” Anne choked out. “You truly were a blessing. And I am so honored I got to meet you, you wonderful, sweet girl.”

She sniffled and wiped her stinging eyes. She tried her best to smile as if the girl were actually there with her.

  “I have to go now,” She said. “Goodbye, Joan.”

  “Mummy’s coming back!” Mary yipped excitedly from inside the car as Anne walked back over.

  “Mama bwought fweind!” Elizabeth babbled.

Aragon tensed. Anne froze. And they both whipped around to the tombstone and the squishy parrot toy that hadn’t been there before.

#carrie au #six the musical #six the musical fanfic #six the musical fanfiction #six the musical au #six fanfiction #six fanfic #anne boleyn #catherine parr #catherine of aragon #katherine howard #joan on the keys #jane seymour #henry the eighth #king henry viii #anna of cleves #elizabeth i of england #parrlyn #parrleyn #anne x parr #parr x boleyn #araleyn #aralyn #aragon x boleyn #tw: blood #tw: gore

[impala-dreamer]

Digital Distraction

SPN FanFic

~Dean Winchester can be extremely distracting. Handsome face, adorkable personality, broad meaty shoulders, emerald eyes, hands....hands...hands....~

Dean x Reader, Sam (briefly)

1,671 Words

Warnings: NSFW. Quirofilia (A sexual fetish for hands.) Fingering. Finger sucking. Daydreaming. Yada Yada.

A/N: For PORN WARS with @covered-byroses! titled by @crashdevlin bc I suck. ;) Enjoy!

Feedback is Gold ~ My Masterlist ~ Become A Patreon

He tapped them on the wheel, drumming along to the radio, slightly out of time but captivating nonetheless. It caught your eye as you sat in the backseat, peeking over the leather to see fingertips dancing. 

They were so long and thick. Had his fingers always looked like that? Knuckles red and a little swollen from the punches he’d delivered that morning. The ring finger bent kinda funny like it’s been broken a few hundred times, but his nails were oddly clean and shining and you found yourself staring for longer than seemed normal. 

Tap, tap, tap. 

Each lazy drum matched your heart beat and as the song picked up, so did your pulse. 

Tap, tap, tap. 

His thumb curled around the wheel, meeting his middle finger, and Dean slid his hand downwards, gently caressing the leather. Your thighs clenched and you arched your back, unconsciously trying to rub your pussy against the seat.

Tap, slap, tap. 

His palm hit the wheel and you bit your lip, imagining his big hand covering your breast. Roughly calloused fingertips and smooth palm squeezing, holding onto your flesh, making everything firm and tingly.

Your mouth watered, your clit throbbed. 

Middle finger jabbed at the air quickly and your hand slid between your legs, firmly pressing up against your covered pussy. 

Styx was blasting and Dean sang along, but all you could think about was that long middle finger sliding in and out of your aching cunt. Would he tease you slowly? Fuck you hard? Take his time? It was maddening. 

You rubbed a little harder, pushing denim roughly against your clit, stifling a whimper with your lip sucked tight between your teeth. 

“You’re my lady! Of the mor...ning!” Dean sang, voice ringing terribly through the Impala. 

Sam jumped, startled out of his book, and twisted towards his brother. “Dude!” 

“I know, it’s awesome!” Dean shouted over the radio and pumped his fist in the air, striking the roof and making your shoulders shake. 

“Fuck…”

The music died down as Dean snapped his wrist over the radio knob. “You OK back there?” he asked, eyeing you through the rearview. 

Your hand magically disappeared from your crotch to hide under your butt. “Uh, yeah. Good. No wrongs back here.” Your voice cracked and your cheeks were burning but Dean shrugged and turned the music back up.

With his fingers…

He held the door open for you; long, freckled fingers curled around black metal.

He handed over your duffle bag, lifting it from the trunk with a strong grip.

He closed the truck with a loving shove; fingers splayed and palm rubbing the shining paint. 

Every action, every move, wave, swipe, sway, tap, turn, touch of his beautiful hands made your blood sing. Even watching him turn the door knob was somehow erotic; you imagined him twisting your nipple with such force and a shiver shot down your spine like lightning through an empty sky. 

Dinner was rather embarrassing. You sat across from him, barely able to find your mouth with your fork; your head was filled with nothing but dirty thoughts. Dean’s hands covering your mouth, closing gently around your throat. Dean’s fingers rolling and pinching at your nipples, flicking against your clit. Dean’s nails scratching down your naked body, raking through your hair. Dean’s palm slapping your ass, rubbing your sloppy cunt. Dean’s hands...grabbing, tangling, pumping...

Snapping in front of your eyes...

“Y/N! Yo! You ok?” 

Dean pulled you from your haze and you blinked wildly, tearing your gaze from his fingertips to his concerned green eyes. 

“What?” 

Dean’s brow creased. “You’re drooling. Are you ok? Look like you’re on another planet.” 

You laughed awkwardly and wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “Yeah, fine. Tired, I guess.” 

Dean frowned but nodded. “I’ll do the dishes then. You go knock out early.” 

He reached for your plate, long fingers gripping the thin edge. 

You jumped. “No! I mean. That’s cool. I’ll help.” You smiled sweetly, but Dean was unconvinced as to your mental status. 

“OK…”

He turned the water on with a quick turn of his wrist. Checked the temperature with a little wave of his hand under the spray. Rang out the sponge with a firm squeeze. Soaped up the dishes slowly, scrubbing away the food with such delicate attention. 

You stood next to him, drying towel clutched in your hands, panties soaked and mouth flooded.

Dean pivoted slightly in your direction and held out a wet mug, its thin handle pinched between two sudsy fingers. 

A moan fell from your lips. 

“What is up with you today, babe?” Dean asked, watching you watch the tiny bubbles fall from his hand. 

“I…” The heat was so strong inside of you that your brain had all but melted away. “I can’t stop thinking about your hands…”

Dean laughed and put the mug down on the counter next to your elbow. “What?”

The towel covered the mug as you threw it down and grabbed Dean’s hand. “Your hands,” you breathed, clutching his right in both of yours. “Your fingers…” You rubbed each one slowly, your heart racing as you felt each bump of bone and sharp crack of skin. “Your palm…” You held him up and placed his palm against yours, nearly cumming at the touch. 

“You’ve lost your head,” Dean teased, chuckling awkwardly. “Did you get into that Professor’s desk? Pretty sure he’d been selling Molly to his students to pay for his Ancient Hungarian Stuvikweed addiction…which, by the way, with side effects like growing horns, is it worth it?”

Dean droned on but you couldn’t hear him. All you could hear was the rush of blood in your ears and a tiny voice that told you to lunge at him. You twirled your thumb against the hollow of his palm and gave in, pulling him close as you spread your lips. 

He gasped as you sucked his middle finger into your mouth, clamping down tight and swirling your tongue around the tip. 

“Fuck, babe,” he moaned as you pulled hard, whimpering around him. “You weren’t kidding.”

“No.” You let his finger go with a pop and took a deep breath. “Need them so bad, Dean. Need to feel your hands on me. Please.” You rocked up against his side, pressing your body against him, and he caught the spark as well. 

“All you had to do was ask…” 

It felt like Heaven, finally having his big hands on you. He crushed you against the counter as his fingers snuck beneath your shirt, teasing your nipples through your bra. 

“Please!”

Your head rolled back off your shoulders as he pinched hard, squeezing your tits just like you knew he could. He was rough and sweet all at the same time; pleasure and pain converging in his strong hands. 

“Jesus, you’re soaked,” he growled, finding you more than ready when his hand slid inside your jeans. 

“All day, Dean. Just need you. Please.” 

He tugged at your pants with his free hand and you wiggled them off your hips. “Hold on,” he whispered with a smirk, hand leaving your pussy for a moment only to tuck underneath your arms. 

You gasped with excitement, feeling each digit dig into your flesh. He lifted you quickly and set you down on the edge of the counter; cold, wet tile stinging your bare ass. 

“Please, Dean!” You grabbed at him, yanking his left hand from your side and lunging for it, once again closing your lips around his fingers. This time, you caught two. 

“Fuck…”

You sucked him in until his fingertips hit the back of your throat and you gagged, humming happily as he let you swallow him down. 

When his right hand grazed your inner thigh, you moaned so desperately that Dean dropped down to kiss you, unable to hold himself back. He nibbled at your ear, groaning with each hard suck on his fingers, and slowly traced your wet pussy with the tip of his index finger. 

You shook against him and gave into your more base urges, grabbing his wrist and shoving his hand full speed into your cunt. Three thick fingers hooked inside of you as Dean growled against your throat. 

“Damnit, baby, you’re so wet.”

With your hand locked tight around his wrist, you let his fingers slide off your tongue. “Fuck me, Dean, Please. Hard.”

The sound was incredible. The sucking of his fingers, the swift pump of his hand through your slick, the noises you made as he filled you top to bottom. The kitchen echoed with your lustful cries as Dean fucked you on the counter, giving you what you’d been dreaming of all day. 

It didn’t take long for you to cum. It was quick and hard, curling your toes and clamping your jaw down tight on his hand. Dean slowed his thrusts, bringing you down gently as you struggled to catch your breath. 

“Well, that was awesome,” he said softly, bit of a laugh of amazement tugging at his voice. 

“Oh my god, Dean.” Your head lolled against his shoulder as he pulled his fingers from your lips and curled his arm around you. “Thank you.” A little moan caught in your throat as he pulled his fingers away, and you grabbed him, bringing his soaking hand up to your mouth. 

Dean’s eyes grew wide as you slowly licked your wetness from his fingers, carefully cleaning him up, enjoying your own sweet taste. 

“Uh…” Dean swallowed hard as his eyes glazed over. “We gotta go. Now.” 

Popping his ring finger from your mouth you looked up with innocent eyes. “Go?”

Dean nodded quickly and yanked you off of the counter, grabbing your jeans as you stumbled onto your feet. 

“Yeah,” he said in a rush. “You’re about to go for a ride and this counter is too damn hard on my back.” 

Realization dawned on you as you watched him fly out the door, turning left towards the bedrooms. “Oh! Fuck, wait up!”

2019 Forever Tags:

@akshi8278 @amanda-teaches @arses21434 @because-imma-lady-assface @burningcoffeetimetravel @colagirl5 @cosicas-cuquis @cosmicfire72 @courtney-elizabeth-winchester @covered-byroses @crashdevlin @dean-winchesters-bacon @deansenwackles @deansgirl215 @dolphincliffs @dubuforeveralone @emilyshurley @emoryhemsworth @ericaprice2008 @eternal-elir @feelmyroarrrr @flamencodiva @focusonspn @gayspacenerd @herbologystudent252 @hobby27 @ilsawasanacrobat @justcallmeasmodeus​ @katymacsupernatural @lastactiontricia @maddiepants @mariekoukie6661 @meganwinchester1999 @missjenniferb @mrswhozeewhatsis @our-jensen-ackles-love  @peridot-rose @pisces-cutie @risingphoenix761 @roonyxx @roxyspearing @sandlee44 @shadowkat-83 @spnbaby-67 @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @spnficgirl  @supernaturaldean67 @supernatural-took-me-over @thehardcoveraddict @tmiships4life @wegoddessofhell @winchesterprincessbride

and @manawhaat bc you seemed interested hehehe <3

#spn fanfic #dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #smut #sexy times #one shot

[bradfordarchive]

clicks my fingers to no humanly discernible rhythm as i strut bk onto the dash w chara number two!! (it’s me nai bk again bt this time wearing a stick on moustache). bradley’s pinterest is HERE n u kno the drill mre abt her under the cut n like this fr those Sweet Sweet plots!!

MARGARET QUALLEY / CIS-FEMALE — don’t look now, but is that bradley milligan i see? the 23 year old psychology student is in their junior year and she is a rochester alum. i hear they can be brave, resilient, destructive and ruthless, so maybe keep that in mind. i bet she will make a name for themselves living in off campus. ( nai. 23. gmt. she/her. )

aesthetics: singeing a hole in your fishnets with the cherry of a menthol, spitting a pistachio behind the bar just to hear it ping off the nozzle top bottles, lemon in a fresh cut, a war torn poppy standing alone in an empty field, poking bruises, stomping over flowerbeds when there’s a path right next to it, dangling over ledges just to feel your chest jolt, a snarling rottweiler that should be muzzled, limp feet poking out behind a door, ‘I PROMISE I DON’T BITE’ scrawled on a name tag, slapping a bald head in front of you at the cinema like it’s a bongo, not owning a single jacket that isn’t stolen, driving a stolen car in the wrong lane against the traffic, blowing coke in someone’s face after asking “hey, does this smell funny to you?”, hair more feral than a wolf cub and eyes smudgier than a coal mine.  

BACKGROUND:

father runs a gang n strip club in queens called ‘no angels’ tht fronts an affluent drug trade, primarily coke. his name is tony milligan n his gang is p infamous around there fr being jst like…. completely cutthroat n awful. they were nicknamed ‘tony’s rottweilers’ by locals bc he bsically has all of these trained dogs on leash at his command n they’re still a growing organisation tday

he’s pretty much the worst human being alive n bradley hs like….. a lot of issues with herself as a result of years of toxicity n abuse

in terms of more family bkground info her mum’s name was alyssa n she vanished when bradley was 12. jst like…. into thin air. nothing. no note. zilch. gan! n when bradley asked her dad abt it his response was essentially “guess she didn’t love us enough to stay”. as bradley’s got older tho n become (without intention) more involved in the business side of things, it’s become pretty clear there was far more to the story.

they had a horrible marriage n tony ws quite violent at the best of times, which didn’t help the fact tht alyssa ws struggling a lot w severe depression n rly just… not in the mindset to b dealing w anything else on top of tht, even where motherhood ws concerned. bradley p much… would look after her a lot n they’d both b scared of her dad n it was just a whole mess.

anyway im rambling bt basically tony (bradley’s dad) gt wind of alyssa sleeping w men tht worked fr him n he just… got rid. bradley’s kind of worked out over the yrs tht her mum didn’t jst leave on her own accord n tht something must hav happened to her bt she’s too scared of her dad to ever directly accuse him

when her mum went all of her dad’s cruelty pretty mch got channelled straight onto her. it ws diluted between two before bt as u can probably imagine her upbringing was jst…. a steep downhill decline frm tht point onwards

she learnt ways 2 deal w the incurring trauma bt they weren’t healthy ones at all! bsically jst. will do or take anything fr the distraction. chases a thrill like it’s the only way to remind her she’s alive. has absolutely no regard fr her own wellbeing n sometimes gets other ppl in trouble too bc she’s so insatiably reckless

she hd….2 separate stints of psychiatric hospitalisation n she never tlks abt it. like ever. acknowledging she’s been vulnerable is her worst nightmare n bc of the way her dad raised her she always thinks any sign of struggling within herself is weakness. truly does…. not kno how to properly emotion

CUT TO!!!! huntington beach. she’s currently living in a spacious loft above a rly busy bar tht i picture like. p close to campus so a lot of students prob frequent it?? she loves it bc she can sit on the window sill smoking n argue w ppl tht walk past drunk. jst randomly callin out like. nice chest hair Loser. i feel like she hasn’t even paid fr wifi she jst uses the bar’s free one n like. goes in there expecting free drinks all the time?? is jst like erm? i live here? let me drink? this is my house? aka she’s. a lot.

her dad’s opening up a new strip club (also called no angels bc he’s trying to lowkey make it like a chain) n he’s only allowed her to make the move bc she’s overseeing it kind of???? as well as a few guys tht worked fr him back in queens. one in particular called billy hs made the move n he’s a menace so. three cheers fr anarchy!

PERSONALITY:

the kind of sour cherry only certain people have a taste for

once drank a bottle of whiskey, insisted she could still do a cartwheel and accidentally kicked an old man’s front tooth out in the process. proceeded 2 collapse into a flower bed and laugh so much abt it that she cried

barely takes anything seriously 50% of the time and is angry the other 50%

if she was a coffee she’d be black with five grains of sugar that you couldn’t taste until the last sip

high functioning alcoholic. if u ever see her w a coffee cup u jst kno tht one sniff will confirm high alcohol percentage. honestly idk hw she does it her liver must b yellin

loyal to a point of fault. if she cares abt u and u murder a man in cold blood she’ll brawl anyone that says ur guilty

honestly wld probably fight a person over anything. sometimes she’ll jst be having a bad day n she’ll burst n take it out on whoever says the wrong thing. a minefield!

has the worst luck in romance…. ever. the majority of her past bfs hav been absolute beasts n as a result she kind of has the ‘romance is dead n love is a lie’ mentality

speakin of which i feel like she’s bi bt wldnt have dated a girl or anythin. like guys r probably…. her preference just bc historically theyv treated her worse n she hs a very self destructive personality like that. sexy!

dresses like courtney love, 2014 sky ferreira and a character from this is england had a baby. mostly wears stolen clothes from strangers and jackets that swamp her. hair is p much always a wild mess n she usually hd kind of smudgy/smoky makeup bcos apparently she’s allergic to combs and generally looking presentable… relatable content

she’s v sarcastic. sometimes blunt. kind of has a habit of…. assessing a person n she’s quite perceptive bc she’s been trained to b by the way she always has to monitor her dad’s expression fr the slightest emotion change. she’s quite confident n can p much mke a conversation out of whatever. sort of independent too like she hs a bunch of friends bt she doesn’t care abt going out places alone if she’s in a certain mood n jst wants…… to get into chaos. she’s probably kind of known around campus bt itd b a 50/50 balance between bein known as intimidating n bein known as that one girl tht always gets into anarchy

likes: fishnets, stealing cars, throwing watermelons off rooftops and whiskey

dislikes: amy schumer, honesty, yellow tulips and going home

PLOTS:

someone tht got a job at the new strip club her dad opened up in town?? either as a dancer or bartender or whtever. just a forewarning it’s probably gna b a pretty..... seedy and Not That Pleasant environment bc it’s like. a crime hotspot inevitably bc it’s a gang hangout so. ur chara wld truly be in fr a rollercoaster ride to say the least

she deals coke fr her dad’s gang bt it’s more like. a hobby than a steady source of income tht she Needs bc she just likes the thrill of the fact tht encounters in tht line of work can turn sour tbh. a Thrill Seeker! mayb she deals to ur muse??

anyone….. she’s brawled in the past like. she’s literally a menace i cnt express this enough. wil jst randomly throw a drink in someone’s face fr no reason bc she’s bored. she’s probably pissed off 1000 diff ppl in 1000 diff ways. the possibilities r endless n i jst think tht’s a sexy prospect!

fwbs perhaps??? exes??? (probably ws a tumultuous relationship wtever…. ur muse is like like bradley is. a handful)

mayb someone tht she met at an aa meeting when she hd to go fr a court mandated thing one time after bein arrested fr public indecency. i feel like there’s probably a rly expensive statue somewhere thts fancily Sculpted n she like. did a flying kick n kicked the dick of it off n gt arrested fr it

ppl she……. Goes Wild Goes Crazy w. truly jst the most self destructive person alive so anyone w a similar mindset wld b a hellish bt fun combination

on the contrary a gd influence cld b nice perhaps? like someone tht genuinely cares abt her n she jst doesn’t kno hw to compute it

um. honestly the world’s our oyster. hmu n we cn brainstorm if none of tht catches ur eye!

#huntingtonintro #depression tw #abuse tw #drugs tw #alcohol tw #alcoholism tw #hospitalisation tw #disappearance tw #death tw #grief tw #murder tw #self harm tw #addiction tw #so sry there r so many tws bradleys life hs been. An Experience to say the least

[stxrmcatcher]

SONGS TO WRITE MY MUSE

whether it be melodies that give you inspiration for your muse or songs that get you into the writing mood  — pick 10 songs you find to give you the urge, the drive, or the creativity to write for your muse!

GLITTER AND GOLD  ——   BARNS COURTNEY .      ( ❝ i am flesh and i am bone - rise up, ting ting, like glitter and gold ; i’ve got fire in my soul - rise up, ting ting, like glitter . ❞ )

IMMORTALS ——   FALL OUT BOYS .      ( ❝ i am the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass; i try to picture me without you but I can't - cause we could be immortals, immortals ! ❞ )

FOLLOW THE SUN ——   XAVIER RUDD .      ( ❝ breathe, breathe in the air, cherish this moment, cherish this breath .  tomorrow is a new day for everyone, brand new moon, brand new sun . ❞ )

PUNCH IT, PUNK! ——   FERRY .      ( ❝ spastic light specs brighter than the bluest skies begin to dance around as panic clouds your eyes - and you can call me dumb, impulsive and unwise, but there's no way I'll stand here and watch, paralysed !     ❞ )

PRISTINE BEAT ——   ZUN + LYRICA LIVE .      ( ❝ those who dare to call us weak, ready for a major shock : take your chance and stake your ground-- come on and let's rock ! ❞ )

WHATEVER IT TAKES ——   IMAGINE DRAGONS .      ( ❝ whatever it takes, ‘cause I love the adrenaline in my veins i do whatever it takes, ‘cause I love how it feels when I break the chains . ❞ )

FACE MY FEARS ——   UTADA HIKARU + SKRILLEX .      ( ❝ breath - should i take a deep? faith - should i take the leap? taste - what a bittersweet. all my, all my life ... ❞ )

BAD APPLE ——   NOMICO + CRISTINA VEE .      ( ❝ you can tell me what to say, you can tell me where to go, but i doubt that i would care, and my heart will never know - if i take another move there’ll be no more turning back, because everything will change, and it all will fade to black . ❞ )

GENETIC EMANCIPATION ——   ALEXA VEGA .      ( ❝ true, though the imprint is deep in me, it will always be up to me, up to me. oh, i'm free at last ! ❞ )

DON’T STOP ME NOW ——   QUEEN .      ( ❝ i’m a shooting star, leaping through the sky like a tiger defying the laws of gravity ! i'm a racing car, passing by like lady godiva | i’m gonna go, go, go, there's no stopping me ! ❞ )

tagged by: @streetsteel​ thank u uwu tagging: steal.................

#ok i kinda cheated bc some are mostly zapdos' but. yes #[•|⚡| musing&aesthetic |⚡|•]

[sawyersscribbles]

WIP Tag Game!

Thank you so much to @sleepy-and-anxious for tagging me! I love tags like this!! <33

rules: answer the questions relating to your wip

1. Describe the plot in one sentence

Nearly a hundred years after an alien race promised humanity immortality for its natural resources, a Chronic Dumbass commits a terrible crime and travels across the southwest with a group of friends and one cat in order to take her immortality away.

2: Pick one sight, smell, sound, feel, and taste to describe the aesthetic for your WIP.

Sight: An abandoned gas station with deserted cars still parked in line

Smell: Burning rubber and melting metal

Sound: Desert winds blowing sand across an empty road

Feel: The sharp edge of a can of creamed corn cast aside

Taste: The fresh taste of raw cactus

3: Which 3+ songs would make a playlist for your novel?

I’ll give the top songs that I like to listen to on my Sky of Sinners playlist:

The Heat - The Score

Good Thing - Barns Courtney

Wicked Ones - Dorothy

Burn the Stars - Massive Vibes

RISE - League of Legends

4: What’s the time period and location in which your novel takes place?

I’ve decided that the official year that Sky of Sinners takes place is 3009 AD on our current timeline, which means I can still quote vines and have it make sense it still has the same history as we do. The story starts in the fictional town of Noere, Arizona, which is about in the same place geographically as the real town of Peach Springs, Arizona, but the group makes their way across the Southwest towards Houston, Texas, passing through New Mexico and most of Texas.

5: Are there any former titles you’ve considered but discarded?

Nope! I remember thinking of this WIP about five minutes before I was about to take a test, and thing number one was the genre, thing number two was the main character, thing number three was the plot(ish), and thing number four was the name.

6: What’s the first line of your novel?

“Ozzy did not like to be picked up”

7: What’s a line of dialogue you’re particularly proud of?

There’s this one interaction between Reagan and Ingrid that I’m pretty proud of where Ingrid is treating Reagan’s wound after an angry neighbor, Frank, shot her in the back of the head:

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to blow Frank’s brains out!”

“Can you at least patch me up first? This kind of stings.”

“I’m going to patch you up first, because this kind of stings!”

8: Which line from the novel most represents it as a whole?

“I can only be tolerated for so long. And then people start realizing who I really am, or I fuck up really badly, and they go away.” Reagan bit the inside of of her mouth and looked at Ingrid up and down, at her muscular legs and her hands clasped in front of her body, at the way her skirt flew in the wind. “You can never understand what it’s like to be hated. You’re fucking perfect.”

9: Who are your character(s) face claims?

I’ll do face claims for the Main Five Kids:

First we have Reagan Hart, the main character and Certified Idiot who likes being gay and doing crimes:

Ingrid Foster, the mom friend who’s really along to make sure that Reagan doesn’t kill herself too many times:

Finley Vasquez, who’s literally never done a bad thing in her life and hasn’t left the desert in 18 years until she leaves with Reagan and the others:

Anais Leroux, who came from France and loves the arts and lipstick and being Quietly Angery(tm)

And then there’s RK, who’s my Spicy Boy(tm) who likes denim jackets and engineering and elaborate chain reaction traps:

10: Sort your characters into Hogwarts houses.

Reagan: Gryffindor

Ingrid: Hufflepuff

Finley: Ravenclaw

Anais: Hufflepuff

RK: Slytherin

11: Which character’s name do you like the most?

I think I like Ingrid’s name the best because it has the right balance of intelligent, mature, and badass.

12: Describe each character’s daily outfit.

Reagan: Gray tank top (probably stained with some type of juice), olive green cargo pants, brown Timberland boots, and a flannel wrapped around her waist

Ingrid: Some sort of pastel t-shirt, probably light pink or yellow, a patterned skirt, and a vest

Finley: A long-sleeved sweater (even though it’s super hot), denim shorts, and sandals

Anais: A wide-brimmed sunhat and a loose sundress that comes to about her ankles

RK: Leather jacket, converse sneakers, and a t-shirt that probably has a movie poster on it

13: Do any characters have any distinctive birthmarks/scars?

Reagan has scars all over her body from all the times she accidentally hurt herself, like bullet wounds, scratches from Ganymedans, and even a large mark on her side from when she accidentally launched a firework into herself. And make no mistake, she shows them off proudly.  

14: Which character most fits a character trope?

I think most of my characters have one character trope or another in them but Reagan fits the Chaotic Good Idiot trope the best, Ingrid is the Mom Friend, and Anais is the Grandma Friend

15: Which character is the best writer? Worst?

Ingrid or Anais would probably be the best writers because Ingrid works in a library and Anais loves theater and old films. Reagan would probably be the worst because she forgot how to read

16: Which character is the best liar? Worst?

RK would definitely be the best liar, while Finley would probably be the worst. She’s just... too good, you know??

17: Which character swears the most? Least?

Oh my god Reagan by far swears the most. She curses so much that she can make up swear words and say them so often that they become bad to the ears of the people around her. Finley is the one who Legally cannot say fuck or she’ll combust.

18: Which character has the best writing? Worst?

I think in terms of handwriting Anais has the best, while again Reagan has the worst because she can’t write.

19: Which character is the most like you? Least like you?

Ooh this is a good one! I put a bit of myself into every one of my characters but Finley and Reagan are the closest to me. Finley, because I, too, feel pressure from my parents to be something I don’t know if I want to be, and I also want to go on a grand adventure and discover myself there. Reagan, because she’s the accumulation of all the things I would never dare say outloud. She’s the one who rebels against authority, eats whatever she wants, and eggs racists’ house, all of which I wish I had the strength to do but never would.

20: Which character would you most like to be?

Probably Ingrid. Her life just seems to be so put together and she knows exactly what she wants from start to finish. Maybe she has a lot of fires to out out and a lot on her plate but I want to exemplify that level of Functional Sapphic(tm) at some point in my life

~

This was so much fun! Thank you, Annabel, again for tagging me in this! For this game I’ll tag: @merrow-writes @noloumna @cohldhands @hepiit and @katabasiss Feel free not to do it, of course!

#tag game #my wip #sky of sinners #sos

[scottiereed]

Fresh Start - Riverdale X 13 Reasons Why Crossover (Part 2)

((GIF is not mine))

Pairing: past Jughead Jones x Reader, currently no romantic pairings

Summary: the reader became pregnant and moved away from Riverdale to try to keep her baby safe, she moved to Evergreen County and Alex and Jessica befriended her.

Warnings: talk of everything that went on in the tapes, mentions of Skye’s scars, teenage pregnancy, 

Words: 2,228 (this part - 3,514 overall)

A/N: I know this is a really long chapter but I wanted the reader to know everything that had happened to Hannah and I couldn’t find a way to split the part into two without making it two really short parts.

If you want to be tagged in this series, please fill this out, I’ve amended it to include an option for this fic, so even if you’ve previously filled it out please fill it out again!

13 Reasons Why Masterlist

Riverdale Masterlist

Part 1

“I’m pregnant.”

A sad smile crossed Jessica’s face as you confirmed what she had thought from the nausea and the ginger ale. “That’s why you left Riverdale?”

“It wasn’t safe.” You confirmed. “There was a serial killer who wanted to cleanse the town of sinners. Before long I’d become a walking embodiment of a sinner. That and my baby’s father is the son of a gang leader.”

“I’m beginning to think Riverdale is even more fucked up that Evergreen.” Jessica laughed lightly and then brought you into a hug.

You pushed your head into her neck. “I’m fucked up too, I didn’t even tell Jughead I was pregnant before I left, in fact I didn’t even tell him I was leaving.”

“Jughead? Your baby’s father is called Jughead?” Jessica pulled back and shot you an amused look.

You giggled. “It’s a nickname, his real name is Forsythe, I’m not sure which one is better.”

“Well, I’m going to advise you not to name the baby after him.” Jessica laughed and brushed your tears away.

You nodded your head, you felt in your gut that the baby was a girl anyway. “Can we just keep this between us at the moment?”

Jessica nodded her head, a smile spreading across her face that she had got a girl friend that she could share her secrets with. “Of course, Y/N, now we should go and get some food in you for you and the baby.”

The pair of you found Alex and Zach on a table with a white boy who had a permanent frown on his face and a Latino boy. “Sorry Alex.” You greeted the boy. “I just hadn’t had anything to eat and got a bit nauseous, it wasn’t your fault I swear.”

Alex looked at you like he knew you were lying but didn’t call you out. “It’s fine, Y/N. This is Clay Jensen and Tony Padilla.” He gestured the two boys and you couldn’t help but think about Toni who had been your best friend, she was bound to be torn up that you’d gone. It had been two weeks now and everyone was bound to know you were gone.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Tony tore you from your daydream.

“You too.” You smiled slightly and watched as the Latino boy nudged Clay in the side. Who looked up and shot you a small smile before continuing to fiddle with his phone.

“Sorry, he’s going through some stuff at the moment.” Tony excused his friend who huffed slightly.

“That’s okay!” You smiled.

“Let’s go get some food.” Jessica gently held the crook of your elbow and pulled you away from the table. “Clay was in love with Hannah.” She whispered to you as you joined the queue to grab food. “He’s been trying to act like it all never happened, but now the trial has started he can’t.”

“Poor boy.” You muttered. “We had a lot of death in Riverdale, but I wasn’t really close with anyone who got murdered. I can’t imagine if the Black Hood had murdered anyone I was close with.”

“Our group, we all knew her, we all did things that drove her to do it.” Jessica explained quietly. “Nothing terrible, of course. But she left these tapes, like a suicide note, one for each reason.”

You were a little surprised by the admission, but you figured she probably needed a friend and the majority of the school was against her. “You’ll have to catch me up, take my mind off Juggie.” You winced as you noticed Jughead’s familiar nickname slip off your tongue.

“Have the cheese fries, they taste the best.” Jessica commented pointing to the fries on the counter, wrinkling her nose at the floppy looking burgers and cold pizza.

You took Jessica’s advice and got some of the cheese fries, wondering how long it would take until you started to get cravings and aversions to certain foods. The cheese fries tasted great and they weren’t too hard on your stomach.

You politely conversed with Jessica and Alex’s friends, meeting Skye, Clay’s girlfriend as well. They seemed a mismatched couple and you noticed the white scars across the girl’s tattooed skin, making you realise that Clay was probably trying to save her like he couldn’t save Hannah. The group had an interesting dynamic that’s for sure.

The group discussed Tyler’s testimony and Jessica explained to you that Tyler had taken pictures through Hannah’s window and he’d spread a picture of her making out with Courtney, who you remembered had been your tour guide. Alex continued by telling you that Tyler was testifying about the bullying that happened in the school, which he had experienced a lot of, partly because he’d been exposed as a peeping Tom.

Your phone went off and you looked down at it to see a number that wasn’t in your contacts but wasn’t unknown. You thought about answering it, but you couldn’t think who’d be ringing you that wasn’t in your contacts, after all it was just your immediate family, you’d deleted all of your friends from Riverdale. You pressed ignore and told the group you didn’t recognise the number.

At that, Jess decided that you needed to have each other’s numbers, so you swapped numbers with Jess and Alex and agreed to meet them both at Monet’s after school, so they could fill you in on exactly what happened with Hannah.

The rest of the day passed without any major incidents and you met Jess and Alex at Monet’s.

“Hey guys.” You grinned and made your way over to the table on a raised area, where Jess and Alex sat.

“Hey, are you feeling better?” Alex asked as soon as you came over and you blushed, remembering sprinting away from Alex to throw up. You briefly considered telling Alex too, but you figure it’s nice to have only one other person knowing for a while longer.

“Much better.” You smiled and sat down in the other seat at the table. You knew you shouldn’t really drink caffeine whilst you’re pregnant, so you didn’t get a drink.

“So, you know about Tyler and Courtney. I accused Hannah of breaking Alex and I up.” Jessica revealed and then a sheepish expression took over her face. “I called her a slut and slapped her. I said we couldn’t be friends anymore.”

It didn’t surprise you that Jessica and Alex had dated, they seemed fairly close, but you were surprised that they had managed to be friends again after everything. You could kind of sympathise with Jessica, you’d seen Betty and Veronica fight about Archie before, but it definitely wasn’t a nice thing to do. It wasn’t as bad as ruining Hannah’s reputation though. You nodded slightly. “That’s not that bad.” You reassured Jessica. “What about you, Alex?”

Alex cleared his throat. “There was this hot or not list and I wrote that Hannah had the best ass and Jess had the worst. It further dented Hannah’s reputation, drawing unwanted attention.” He shook his head and looked downwards. “It was stupid, I was trying to make Jess jealous and it worked, but it ruined their friendship.”

That didn’t seem like a massive thing to you either. You were still getting used to the school’s dynamics, so you could be wrong. “That… doesn’t seem too bad?” it came out like a question because you almost couldn’t believe that Hannah had used that as a reason to kill herself.

“I guess on its own it wasn’t that bad, but there was way more going on and she could’ve used having us as her friends.” Alex levelled titling his head guiltily.

“So, what else happened?” You asked, moving closer to the table and setting your elbows on the table. You tried not to sound too eager, but you were pretty interested in the situation, you’d clearly spent too much time with Jughead.

“Well, there’s this guy called Justin.” Alex started, and you watched Jessica shift uncomfortably beside him. “He pursued Hannah and they had a date in the park and he took a picture of her going down the slide, you could see her panties and it looked worse than it did. He kind of bragged to his friends and one of them texted the picture around.”

“He’s not really around anymore though.” Jessica pointed out. “He didn’t have the best home life; his mom is a junkie.” There was an odd tone to Jessica’s voice and you could tell she’d had more of a relationship with the boy than she was admitting.

“You dated Justin too, didn’t you?” You furrowed your eyebrows slightly. That probably didn’t help Jessica’s relationship with Hannah.

“Yeah.” Jessica’s tone softened, but you knew there was still more to the story. You didn’t push it though.

“Then there was Zach, the boy from earlier.” Alex steered the conversation back to Hannah, you noted that it was probably because he knew what happened with Justin. “Hannah rejected him, and he stole the compliments from her compliment bag.”

You frowned, Zach had seen like a lovely person, with how he looked after Alex. “That’s all there is to his relationship with Hannah?” You shake your head, why would Zach do something so cruel. “Why would he do that?”

Alex shrugged. “He’s never told me the full story. I guess it will come out at the trial.”

“Then there’s Clay, obviously, he was in love with Hannah.” Jessica continued. “Hannah liked him too, but Clay never made a move.”

“Well he did once, but then Hannah freaked out.” Alex pointed out. “He was also pretty oblivious, said some things about Hannah, that he didn’t realise were about her.”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “How did he not know they were about her?”

“That brings us to Ryan Shaver, he runs the schools ‘zine, he stole one of Hannah’s poems and published it anonymously.” Alex drank some of his hot chocolate and you watched with a small smile as his top lip got smothered in whipped cream. You passed him a napkin and he wiped his mouth before continuing. “It was really personal, but everyone found it funny, because they’re idiots and didn’t understand.”

“Clay commented on it and it hurt Hannah’s feelings.” Jessica finished.

“Did Hannah blame Clay?” You asked quietly, Clay had seemed really cut up when you met him previously.

“No, he’s not like the rest of us.” Alex gave a slow, sad shake of his head. “She just wanted him to understand why she did it.”

You nodded, fiddling with the sleeve of your shirt. “Is that it?”

Jessica let out an amused laugh. “No.”

“There was a party at Jessica’s.” Alex started, giving Jessica a short look. “Quite a few things happened that night.”

“That was the night that Clay and Hannah kissed, and she freaked out.” Jessica clarified, but her voice was starting to become hoarse. “Clay left, and Hannah stayed in my room.”

“Jess and Justin were still dating at the time and they went to her room.” Alex carried on, gently reaching over and giving Jessica’s shaking hand a squeeze. “Jess fell asleep, so Justin left her to sleep and then Bryce came in and… raped her. Justin knew what was happening, but he didn’t stop it. Hannah didn’t either.”

“So that was another Justin tape.” Jessica spoke again. “And then Hannah was really torn up, so she left and this cheerleader, Sheri offered to give her a lift home and, on the way, they knocked down a stop sign and Sheri wouldn’t report it.”

“Then Jeff Atkins, the most popular, nicest guy in the school didn’t stop because there was no sign and he died in a crash.” Alex frowned, Jeff was the only jock that he had really liked. “Jeff was also really good friends with Clay.”

“And Bryce, he also raped Hannah.” Jessica took a sip from her mug and you realised that you didn’t know what she was drinking.

“God, how many tapes were there?” Your eyes widened, this poor girl had gone through a lot.

“13. Justin, me, Alex, Tyler, Courtney, Marcus, Zach, Ryan, Justin again, Sheri, Clay, Bryce, Mr Porter.” Jessica counted off the tapes on her fingers.

“Mr Porter?” You titled your head trying to place the name. “The guidance councillor? What did he do?”

“It’s more like what he didn’t do.” Alex chirped cryptically. “Hannah went to him for help, she told him about her rape and that she wanted to kill herself, but because she didn’t say the exact words he didn’t help.”

“I’ll probably stay away from him then…” You breathed out, disturbed at the guidance councillors lack of care for his students. “And Marcus?”

“He asked her out because of all the rumours about Hannah, he thought she was easy, and then tried to stick his hand up her skirt.” Jessica shivered slightly, it was probably quite close to her own experience.

Just then your phone started ringing, at a glance you immediately identified it as the number that had rang you earlier. You decided to answer it, considering that the same person had rung you twice now.

“Sorry, I think I better take this, it’s the same number as earlier.” You frowned at your phone and then slid the slider across to answer the call. “Hello?”

“Y/N?”

Crossover Taglist (fill this out to be added, * means tumblr won’t let me tag you, send me an ask and we can try and sort it): @zachdempseydeservestheworld* @southsideserpentlover* @fangirlnation123 @misskarynie @mysticsthinking

#13 reasons why #13 reasons why imagine #13 reaons why imagines #13rw #riverdale #riverdale imagine #riverdale imagines #alex standall x reader #jessica davies x reader #jughead jones x reader

[simdaisies]

57 Facts

There’s a lot of facts about me here.  

I was tagged by @phoenixfg a bit ago and I’m only now getting got around to doing it while I’m sitting on this flight to Halifax and inwardly panicking about being on a plane.

I don’t know how this meme works, or if you even had to have 57 facts. That feels like an arbitrary number.  But since we’re doing arbitrary numbers, I’m tagging the last 7 simblrs in my activity log (sorry if you’ve already been tagged) @taylors-simblr @applezingsims @simageddon, @zx-ta @simgaroop @artemisa02 @vicarious-sims  and of course anyone else who wants to do this.  

(warning: 57 facts about me  is not as described in gif)

(update: I’ve been back a week now)

So I guess fact #1 I have a fear of flying.

 I was born in the Philippines.  I was brought to Canada when I was two.

When I was a kid me, my little brother and neighbourhood friends would dissect dead frogs we’d find in the back lots.

I loved 80s music.  I’d try to record songs off the radio with a tape deck, hitting the “record” button just as the DJ was done talking

Lots of my current tastes was formed in the 90s

I got into my first major car accident when I made a bad left turn. I totalled my parent’s jeep and wrecked a few cars. No one was seriously injured. 

I wrote an entire book when I was sixteen. My friends helped me write it and I shared it only with them.  I’m still carrying that idea around ( I drew the main character again recently )

My first memory of drawing was in the blank pages at the beginning and end of Encyclopedias.  I’d draw a lot of princesses. 

There was an old TV show in the 80s I really enjoyed called “The Misfits of Science”. Basically people with super powers.  It starred a teenaged Courtney Cox. 

I love(d) comic books. 

My very amateur fan art was published in the reader submitted artwork section of Wizard magazine. I think I was about 16 at the time. We had no concept of webpages, social media and online portfolios in those days

 I had a German Shepherd mutt named Sam. After about a year, he went to go live on a farm. No really, he did.  

I went to college to learn Classical Animation 

 I worked on kids cartoons and children’s TV shows. I didn’t take my job seriously, I wish I did.

I was a goth in the 90s and in the early 2000s.  

 I now think goths are silly. Still love the aesthetic. (finished my trip, now I’m back home at this point!) 

I worked for a time as an assistant clean-up animator. Basically that meant cleaning up the assistant animator’s in-between frames.  It wasn’t inspiring work and I wasn’t great at it. 

 I worked briefly on a short film by Yoshitaka Amano (he does artwork for FF, Vampire Hunter D, among others). This was called 1001 Nights, and was shown alongside a live orchestra. I still have the poster hanging over my bed.

 The first video game I’ve ever worked on and published was Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem.  I modeled and animated. 

The second game I’ve worked on was Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes for the Nintendo Gamecube.  I’m a ghost photo easter egg in that game.  My name is in an IGN walkthrough. :D  

I adopted my first kitty in 1996. He was a fuzzy kitten and I named him Thaddeus. 

I moved to St. Catharines, ON for work. One of the places I lived there was a big Victorian that was divided into three apartments. Me and my partner at the time lived on the top floor (the attic). Probably the coolest place I’ve ever lived. 

When we broke up, I bought my own little house.  

I got sick with bacterial meningitis in 2004. I almost died. Was placed in a medical coma for two weeks. Woke up with lots of open skin wounds which would scar me for life. I’m okay. ^_^  This is documented on LJ here. My wonderful friend David kept my online friends in the loop.

I still have issues from being sick. I’ll have to deal with it forever I guess.

During my recovery I started playing World of Warcraft. 

My first WoW character was a human warrior, and I named her Jinzou, after my Animal Crossing character. 

I was a damn good tank. I lead raids. 

I was laid off from video game company. This was fine, I was ready for something different. 

I became a real estate agent for a bit, for many reasons. Some of that was fun, other parts of that was stressful.  I made money. 

I don’t think I have a favourite colour, but I do use a lot of purple tones in everything. Even my hair was purple for a while. I guess I like purple.  

Music tastes change from time to time, but I always love big broadway musicals. 

I saw Les Miserables over 10 times and met the Toronto cast at a point.

I’m currently listening to Come From Away.  

My favourite movie is Spirited Away 

I don’t watch a lot of animes, but I appreciate good ones. My favourite is still probably Cowboy Bebop. I’m taking reccs. 

I’m an introvert. I don’t like big social events, and it takes a lot of mental energy preparing for them, and a lot of time for me to come down from them. 

I don’t like dating.  I met my fiancé online though. 

I love my dude because he’s a big nerd and I’m comfortable with him. It’s a big deal for me. 

He proposed to me this summer. We’re engaged.  :D 

I have made no wedding plans yet, but it’s gonna be small, cheap and simple. :D  

I read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when I was in highschool. 

My favourite place to hang out when I was a kid was the libraries.  

I learned HTML in the 90s.

I will be 45 this year.  

My current favourite writer is Neil Gaiman. Read American Gods or Stardust.

I love horror, sci-fi, fantasy and superhero stories. Given all the time in the world, I could eat it all up. 

I’ve read the Lord of the Rings many times through out my life and once more before the movies came out. I liked the movies.

I didn’t like the Hobbit movie trilogy though. So much unnecessary filler. 

I love building worlds in the Sims. 

I have no sense of style. Jeans, t-shirt, sweater, I’m good. 

My handle “blackdaisies” is from one of my first webpages, called “Black Daisies Grow Here”... yeah that goth thing again

I’ve been playing the Sims since the first Sims City

My very first Sim was in the first Sims game. Her name was Alice Novak and she stole Bella away from Mortimer. 

my default lunch lately is yam/avocado sushi

I live in a neighbourhood in Toronto known as The Beaches. Because there’s a beach. I don’t live on the beach though.

My dream vacation would be going up to a nice cottage by a lake in the Muskokas in fall.

#57 facts #meme #non-sims #tldr #way too much about me

[acidwaste]

hey so it seems i’ve forgot to do a l o t of tag memes, and i’m lucky i drafted a big bunch of them! lots of questions overlapped so i did my best to answer in different ways, sorry for the lateness! also @ the people that tagged me here, i wouldn't hesitate to kill for you

@natcaptor / @gayspaced

name: leon or lionel!

nicknames: literally the only nickname I’ve been referred to is “big gay” and like. word!

gender: im pretty sure im a guy, i have been kinda 🤔🤔🤔 abt my gender identity since around november-ish though

star sign: sagittarius!

height: 6’1! i’m told that I’m tall but my uncle is 6’7 so...

time: 3:36pm rn! ive been watching video essays and binging music all afternoon

birthday: december 9th!

favourite bands: animal collective, beach house, camp cope, car seat headrest, death grips, fleet foxes, florence + the machine, gang of youths, glass animals, gorillaz, hop along, iceage, idles, kero kero bonito, mgmt, miike snow, modest mouse, run the jewels, superorganism, the avalanches, the cat empire, the go! team, the mountain goats, the wombats, xiu xiu

favourite solo artists: alex lahey, anderson .paak, ariana grande, billie eilish, bjork, cashmere cat, charli xcx, courtney barnett, cupcakke, d.r.a.m, eric taxxon, frank ocean, gfoty, hatchie, janelle monae, jeff rosenstock, joanna newsom, jorja smith, jpegmafia, kacey musgraves, kali uchis, kendrick lamar, khalid, kimbra, lorde, mac demarco, madeon, mick jenkins, mitski, oneohtrix point never, perfume genius, ravyn lenae, rina sawayama, serpentwithfeet, sophie, st. vincent, sza, vince staples

song stuck in my head: caramelo duro | miguel // kali uchis! its a bop, miguel is one of the few singers that can convincingly make sex jams

last movie i watched: deadpool 2! it was even better than the first, which is a feat in itself ngl

when did i create my blog: december 2016??? i only started using it properly in february last year tho

last thing i googled: “im in my mums car broom broom.” dont @ me

do i have any other blogs: yeah, plenty actually!! i have blogs for aesthetic (@moltenstar), general inspo (@wverns), flight rising (@szarising, kinda inactive?), and overwatch (@blackhardts) tbh the vast majority of my ‘sideblogs’ are just saved urls H

do i get asks: when i say stupid shit like “rung has the ass of a dilf but the dick of a cockroach”

why i chose my url: that one panel where kobd have a vacation at the acid wastes because fuck its finally canon babey!

following: 1,767, which is kinda horrifying!!

followers: 890?? somehow??? thats almost One Whole Thousand and i don't even make content

average hours of sleep: around 6 or 7!! n e v e r more though

lucky number: 43 and 64!!

instruments: i'm too poor to afford music lessons or instruments jsbddsjknfs

what am i wearing: a grey shirt and nothing on my bottom half so my [redacted] is hanging tf out, i should put on some damn clothes

dream job:  oooo uhhh, i’m studying to get an education degree rn because i’d love to teach children (around grade 3-4s preferably because i'm too jittery to handle anyone younger and older kids probs won't listen to me as much as i lack plenty of assertiveness), but!! i’d honestly love to be a musician, one of those underground ones that get lots of critical acclaim

dream trip: one day i wanna gather up some friends and just go on a road trip! idm where we go to, as long as we just have fun and just! adventure!

favourite foods: rare steak, mashed potatoes, eggs, and energy shakes made with like. fruit / cheese / yoghurt / oats / chia seeds ! protein is a large part of my diet

nationality: new zealand, but living in australia

favourite song right now: best part | daniel caesar // h.e.r - gosh i need to re-listen to daniel’s album again, i don’t remember this beautiful song being there and that’s a crime

@damndesi / @novarebel / @luciform-philogynist

APPEARANCE - I am 5'7 or taller - I wear glasses - I have at least one tattoo (but I am getting a tā moko in December, I believe) - I have at least one piercing (planning to get a nose ring, like a bull!) - I have blonde hair - I have brown eyes - I have short hair - My abs are at least somewhat defined (b a r e l y) - I have or had braces

PERSONALITY - I love meeting new people - People tell me I am funny - Helping others with their problems is a big priority of mine - I enjoy physical challenges - I enjoy mental challenges - I am playfully rude to people I know - I started saying something ironically and now I can’t stop saying it - There is something I would change about my personality

ABILITY - I can sing well - I can play an instrument - I can do over 30 pushups without stopping (barely) - I am a fast runner - I can draw well - I have a good memory - I am good at doing math in my head - I can hold my breath underwater for over a minute - I have beaten at least 2 people arm wrestling - I can make at least 3 recipes from scratch - I know how to throw a proper punch

HOBBIES - I enjoy sports - I’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else - I’m in an orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else - I have learned a new song in the past week - I exercise at least once a week - I have gone for runs at least once a week in warmer months - I have drawn something in the past month - I enjoy writing - Fandoms are my #1 priority - I do some form of Martial arts

EXPERIENCES - I have had my first kiss - I have had alcohol (tastes like shit) - I have scored a winning point in a sport - I have watched an entire TV series in one sitting - I have been at an overnight event - I have been in a taxi - I have been in the hospital or ER in the past year - I have beaten a video game in one day - I have visited another country - I have been to one of my favorite bands concerts

MY LIFE - I have one person that I consider to be my Best Friend - I live relatively close to my school/work - My parents are still together - I have at least one sibling - I live in the United States - There is snow where I live right now - I have hung out with a friend in the past month - I have a smart phone - I own at least 15 CDs - I share my room with someone

RELATIONSHIPS - I am in a Relationship - I have a crush on a celebrity - I have a crush on someone I know - I’ve been in at least 3 relationships - I have never been in a Relationship - I have admitted my feelings to a crush - I get crushes easily - I have had a crush for over a year - I have been in a relationship for over a year - I have had feelings for a friend

RANDOM - I have break-danced - I know a person named Jamie - I have had a teacher that has a name that is hard to pronounce - I have dyed my hair - I’m listening to a song on repeat right now - I have punched someone in the past week - I know someone who has gone to jail - I have broken a bone (do fractures count?) - I have eaten a waffle today - I know what I want to do in life - I speak at least two languages (not fluently) - I have made a new friend in the past year

@smstransformers

age: 16

birthplace: auckland, nz

current time: 4:19 pm rn!!!

drink you last had: i just skulled half a liter of water whoops

favourite song: jesus etc. | wilco if we're talking abt an all-time favourite

grossest memory: accidentally swallowing a bee when i was seven years old (somehow nothing bad happened?)

horror, yes or no: not unless it’s an incredibly tame horror t b h, my threshold for scariness is very low

in love: i believe so!

jealous of people: lots of times, over really dumb things

love by first sight or should I walk by again: i believe that infatuation can exist at first sight but true love not so much. wish that could happen tho :C

middle name: shane!

siblings: my sister is eight years old, and my brother is seven!

one wish: EZ, make my anxiety disappear, i’d have a much more productive life

song i last sang: jupiter | haiku hands

time i woke up: 7:13, woke up immediately because i usually like to wake at 6:30

underwear colour: blue + purble

vacation destination: auckland / kingston / sydney!

worst habit: not remembering to make my goddamn bed, it looks like garbage

favourite food: mashed potatoes….

zodiac sign: sagittarius !!!

@alyonian

relationship status:

at the moment i’m single! and while being in a relationship sounds brilliant, the last two relationships i was involved in? didn’t work out to say the least, lucky i’m still young

favourite colour:

it’s been emerald green for the longest time but orange seems to be dethroning it at a steady pace

lipstick or chapstick:

i haven’t used chapstick since i was six but i probably should use it again, water is my substitute rn fdghdgh - and i haven’t ever used lipstick in any capacity? so i’d have to go with the former

last song i listened to:

the space traveller’s lullaby | kamasi washington - i’m trying to get through his second album rn (i left off on the second disk yesterday) and while everything he makes is undeniably amazing, it’s? a three hour album? i don’t have the attention span for his spiritual jazz, as great as it is

last movie:

monsters inc is playing on the television right now, i’ll go with that! the animation aged kinda badly but it’s still such a fun movie! sidenote: james p. sullivan? a childhood crush, so this gives me memories

top 3 tv shows/podcasts/comics:

i rarely, if ever, venture into these forms of media but! if i had to answer, i’d say;

unbreakable kimmy schmidt / parks & recreation / luke cage

taz / mbmbam (i havent like. watched a full episode of either but they seem cool,)

tf idw / …………. yeah that’s it, i’ve never read anything else. probably should!

additional favs:

my friends, writing (in theory), listening to video essays, learning music theory + instruments and understanding audio production software

top 3 bands / artists:

HHH okay if i had to limit my choices to just three artists, uh. lorde, the mountain goats, and sophie. i couldnt even fit janelle in i hate th is

----------------------------------

@alyonian

color(s): light colors are always nice and pleasant, though anything peachy and sandy are the best! orange (specially pastel orange) is like. the best thing

last band t-shirt i bought: usually merchandising is very expensive and i dont have the money to accommodate that, but like. i do recall having a wiggles shirt when i was five. i wore it all the time, shjdjgsksd im sure that counts

last band i saw live: i almost went to splendor in the grass last year with family, which wasn't only cool since i’ve never been out of the state since i immigrated - the festival was in queensland, which is around a two hour flight from victoria - but the lineup was pretty fuckin lit too! the xx, haim, peking duk, tash sultana, future islands, vallis alps, a.b original,, i was p excited! unfortunately my uncle fell ill and so they had to give the tickets to extended family :( otherwise, i haven't been to a single concert in my life

last song i listened to: street fighter mas | kamasi washington - up to this song on the album and i really fuckin dig this! also the video is hypnotizing

last movie i watched: monsters inc is about to finish and up next is monsters university! which like…. honestly, this is an extremely unpopular opinion but, i like it just as much as the original? my opinion might be skewed because i’m a monster [hugger], but i like everything abt the movie! except for the finale of the scare games and the last five minutes of the movie, both were just. dreadful.

last three tv shows i watched: if aggretsuko counts that’s the last series i watched of my own volition, which is a miracle in itself considering that’s legit only the second anime i’ve watched to completion (the first being shirokuma cafe, which i probably need to re-watch). otherwise, the last two shows i had beared witness to were thirteen reasons why and queer eye bc my cousin put them on! that first show i could completely do without but queer eye is iconique

last 3 characters i identified with: grimlock (legit. all of them), urdnot grunt (mass effect) and vector the crocodile (sth), i’m not sure what this says about me other than Big

book(s) i’m currently reading: i’m reading ‘maus’ by art spiegelman at the moment, for the third time i believe? i believe my classmates are supposed to be writing an essay on this next term and shit, this novel is heartbreaking, i haven't been this emotional when reading a book than… ever, really. it’s a recommendation of the highest caliber

@victorion

name: leon / lionel, i picked up the second name because i was in a server with an admin that was also a Leon™

nickname: besides ‘Big Gay’ i also have the nickname ‘lemon lion’ which is! nice!!

zodiac sign: archer man

height: Tall™

language(s) spoken: english / some maori + italian

fav fruit: watermelons (only when in season)

fav scent: the smell of a freezer tbh? it just smells Nice i don’t know how to properly explain it

fav season: spring! the breezes are welcoming without being overbearingly freezing

fav color: ornge,,,,

fav animal: SHARKS + CROCS + FERRETS

coffee, tea or hot chocolate: tea! with some milk tho

average hrs of sleep: too little

fav fictional character: One character?????? uhhhhhhh……. like. biggest cc right now is either idw skids or oz from monster prom

no. of blankets you sleep with: depending on my mood but i’d say the average is like, 3??

fav songs: i quickly whipped up some songs i listen to

fav artists: i came to the realization that i like acts that are considered ‘bad’ like maroon 5/drake/lil yachty etc in specific doses… i wouldn't call them good yet, but! i have no beef and thats good

fav books: remember ‘where the wild things are’??? that shit was like. literal childhood, man.. :happytears: i really need to look for a copy again

@thonany-klieme

name: leon / lionel, interchangeable really

gender: male, im probs an nb guy

star sign: sagittarius!

height: 6’1

sexuality: gay??? im not sure, im mostly attracted to other guys but i have had very brief crushes on girls + nb people? sexuality’s confusing so im gonna just latch to the gaybel (gay label) for now

lock screen image: its the album cover of 1992 deluxe by princess nokia, tho it was “T Hanos” a few days ago since i change it often - my home screen is venom but his torso says ‘fuck machine’

ever had a crush on a teacher: no??

where do you see yourself in ten years: ideally i’m teaching kids math n english, realistically i’m probably going down with the political climate

if you could go anywhere, where would you go: new zealand!! or the netherlands

what was your favorite halloween costume: halloween is not big at all where i live, the only time i tried trick or treating was when i was like 7?? i threw a bedsheet on myself and pretended to be a ghost, though since there were no eyeholes + the sheet was blue, it looked more like i was just a moving lump

last kiss: never had one

have you ever been to las vegas: nah and i dont plan to?? how do you handle regular days of 40C wtf

favorite pair of shoes: i have this pair of jandals that ive worn for a fair bit longer than my other pair of shoes, tho i only wear them in summer + very warm nights

favorite book: ngl its. ‘the very hungry caterpillar’ by eric carle. i just, love it alot and i cant explain w h y

#acid.txt #this took a while but :wahoo:

[httpsaw]

— 85 questions 💌

rules: answer these 85 statements about yourself, then tag more people

i was tagged by @1esbiana thank u for tagging me angel!!

- LAST

1. drink - Raspberry & Blackberry water

2. phone call - My friend Emily

3. text message - my other friend Courtney

4. song you listened to - See you again by Tyler the creator

5. time you cried - Monday

- EVER

6. dated someone twice? - No

7. kissed someone and regretted it - the only 2 ppl ive kissed were guys so yes

8. been cheated on - No

9. lost someone special - Yeah

10. been depressed - Yes dsdfsjksdf still am b!

11. gotten drunk and thrown up - i havent thrown up i know my limits

- FAVE COLORS

12. Red

13. White

14. Green

- IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU…

15. made new friends - yeah and lost them but it be like that

16. fallen out of love - yes :(

17. laughed until you cried - yes omg i rlly be thinking i peed bc how hard i laughed

18. found out someone was talking about you - uhh yeah:/

19. met someone who changed you - no tbh its just me changing 

20. found out who your friends are - yeah:/

21. kissed someone on your facebook friends list - no

- GENERAL

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know irl - all except 1

23. do you have any pets - a cat who i love legit i could go on for hours

24. do you want to change your name - i kinda wanna legally change my name to Rosa but thats tew much work

25. what did you do for your last birthday - no omg my birthdays r so depressing lets not talk abt this

26. what time did you wake up today - midday bc its not hot so i can rest

27. what were you doing at midnight last night - litchrally sleeping bc again its not hot so i dont have to suffer

28. what is something you can’t wait for - not being mentally ill & looking back at who i was in 10 years and how far i got or havent got

30. what are you listening to right now - Flower boy by Tyler the creator

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom - yeah in primary school but i never saw him after that and i dont even remember anything abt him except his name

32. something that gets on your nerves - people talkin over me it makes me so mad, ppl who dont listen/just ignore u like bitch okay then.

33. most visited website - uh tumblr or pinterest i love that bitch

34. hair color - dark brown i dont dye my hair bc im worried abt burning my head

35. long or short hair - its slowly making its way to shoulder length cant wait to cut it again i love cutting my own hair omg

36. do you have a crush on someone - no idk like this half year ive just been thinking abt myself and how i can better myself, plus everyone i know/met im not attracted to so

37. what do you like about yourself - uh my eyes, my ability to empathise, how i can stand up for myself sometimes, my creativeness

38. want any piercings? - no sometimes i want to get my ears pierced for hoop earings but i have hearing aids and ive been self consious of them since i was a kid i dont wear them when i should n i dont want to draw attention BUT im trying to accept it n be confident like im struggling w my voice but im kinda accepting it and liking it so i gotta accept my deafness bc i pierce my ears thats so dumb sjkdjkks

39. blood type - idk i feel like this is so ppl can steal my kidneys go away (or at least pay me)

40. nicknames - litchrally just Rosa or “that sad bitch”

41. relationship status - single also ive been thinking abt this like obv im 19 n v shy/isolated but im worried ill never fall in love w someone bc ive had ppl love me but like i just dont feel like i will ever truly love someone and not be over it in a week

42. zodiac - Leo sun/Sag Moon/Taurus Rising

43. pronouns - He/Him or They/Them i dont mind

44. fave tv shows - Breaking Bad, Pretty Little Liars, idk most of them suck n i get bored of them

45. tattoos - i have 2 n i want more but im poor :’(

46. right or left handed - right

47. ever had surgery - yeah ive had like 7 i was supposed to have had my 8th but uhhhhhhh yeah the phsycologist didnt think it was the right time

48. piercings - no go away

49. sport - do i look like i do sports??? (this was in the voice of that vine sjkdjkdsfjk)

50. vacation - im always on a vacation in my mind when i close my eyes

51. trainers - i wear one pair of shoes n theyre white nikes i love them i only like the white shoes bc i hate the black pair i have bc they look weird n i dont buy shoes often i may buy boots soon tho

- MORE GENERAL

52. eating - go away

53. drinking - i answered this before?

54. i’m about to watch - myself pin some stuff to my pinterest boards

55. waiting for - myself to finish this and then do my skincare routine

56. want - time to stand still so i cant breathe

57. get married - i said it before idk if ill ever love someone i probably will right like so many people do? but idk if i want to get married, i like the idea of a wedding n dressing up all nice but idk if its for me

58. career - uhhh writer fml or florist like idk if i need a degree for that but like lemme plant flowers ok damn

- THIS OR THAT

59. hugs or kisses - hugs

60. lips or eyes - eyes bc some ppl dont moisturize their damn lips

61. shorter or taller - taller bc im short but if my future gf was shorter then like ok? sflkkl like what am i supposed to do get her really high boots to wear?

62. older or younger - older i guess? i only have dated ppl my age but as long as its not a big age gap yk like i dont want to date a 30 year old rn sdfkksfdk

63. nice arms or stomach - arms bc i wanna be held

64. hookup or relationship - neither bc id have a panic attacksdjfsfjjkfsdjk too real

65. troublemaker or hesitant - uhh? idk ? what does this mean? im hesitant like i wanna make sure shit aint gonna ruin me or go awful and if it does i have a plan/vague idea on how to fix it

- HAVE YOU EVER

66. kissed a stranger - no id rather choke

67. drank hard liquor - yes but name a drink that doesnt taste like death

68. lost glasses - i dont have glasses but i probably would

69. turned someone down - yea haha i laugh bc im uncomfortable bc it ruined a rlly close friendship i had oh well!

70. sex on first date - no id rather DIE

71. broken someone’s heart - yes :(

72. had your heart broken - yes im a sensitive bich!

73. been arrested - no i know ppl that have been but thats as close as i ever wanna get

74. cried when someone died - i cried when allison argent & lexa died but noone irl

75. fallen for a friend - yeah but it was online n we dont talk anymore but i do miss her

- DO YOU BELIEVE IN

76. yourself - yes im a legend (im in a good mood so yes i do)

77. miracles - uhhh i dunno?

78. love at first sight - yes im not even gonna play

79. santa claus - no but if ppl do thats cute n who am i to tell them not to

80. kiss on a first date - id let u know if i ever go on one!

81. angels - dunno? i guess i believe in god but angels? not really? like i wouldnt say they definetly DONT exist but i also wouldnt put my faith in them

- OTHER

82. best friend’s name - uh thats my cat Zulu

83. eye color - brown

84. fave movie - 13 going on 30 i bought it on discount from morrisons thinking i wouldnt like it but itd be something to watch but biiiiiiiitch i feel in love w that movie!!!

85. fave actor - crystal reed but only bc she played allison argent n i still would die for her

-Tag others: @matd @01chuu @lunesgf @nbwlw n anyone else who wants to 

#alcohol // #death mention // #abt me #sorry lmk if yall dont wanna b tagged but ye

[artificialqueens]

When Roses Bloom (Trixya) Chapter One - Bramble

I have had this idea brewing in a word document for a little while now and am finally confident enough to post it. This is the project of mine that has the longest chapters. If you like lots of fuck ups Trixya, side established Pearlet, oblivious slow-burn Witney, and mamma bear Peppermint this fic might be for you. Enjoy!

When Katya finds out one of her roommates is leaving the apartment she is upset. Not because she likes the girl, far from it, the loopy bitch is a complete nut job and that is coming from Katya. No, she is upset because she barely gave any notice of her departure, nowhere near enough time to find a new roommate.

It isn’t even the fact she is leaving that upsets Katya, it’s the fact they were only informed three days before the moving day, which meant the girl must have been looking for a new place for some time prior. Katya would like to say she is a good roommate but the truth was she didn’t make much of an effort, still she isn’t bad enough to drive someone away without so much of a word beforehand. She knows she could have tried harder, gotten to know the girl, her background, her story. Actually, ask how her day was when she got in from her course, what she was studying. Asked personally what she wanted from the shop instead of demanding her to leave her shopping list attached to the fridge, know her well enough to be able to surprise her with her favourite snack. Done all the things she does for Ginger with no questions asked. Maybe Katya should’ve done all those things, but that would’ve meant getting attached the girl and what was the point now? The girl is leaving?

However bad of a roommate Katya might have been to Vanessa, she believes it was common courtesy to give more than three days notice to moving out. Katya thinks it is a demonstration of respect to your roommates, people who need the rent, to give them at least a week minimum. And Katya wasn’t given that.

Katya isn’t upset, she is fuming.

Katya can only hope that next time is better. Sure, Vanessa always paid her rent on time and kept her nose out of Katya’s business, but she hadn’t made much of an effort either and communication is a two-way street. She has promised Ginger that no matter how little Katya gets on with the inevitable new roommate that she will at least try.

“Hey, Katya.” She is still packing up the last of Vanessa’s stuff when she hears her best friends voice coming from the hallway of the apartment. A couple of seconds later, Ginger comes into their former roommate’s room holding an open cardboard box in her arms.

“What are we going to do, Bob Hoskins?” Katya asks with hopeless eyes, taping up the box she has just finished packing. She carefully scrawls ‘books’ on it with a sharpie and straightens her back. She stands up and walks over to the last pile of her ex-roommate's crap.

“Start looking for a new roomie first thing tomorrow morning,” the short women states adjusting the hold of the box in her arms as Katya gently places the stuff into it. The blonde tapes up the book before struggling to write 'miscellaneous’ onto it. “Now lets go, loser.”

Katya lets out a heavy sigh as she bends down to pick up the box on the floor. She follows Ginger out the door and complains all the way down the stairs about how their former roommate chose a day the lift for the apartment block is out-of-order to move and how her arms hurt from carrying boxes down the stairs all day, boxes that aren’t even hers. But before she knows it they are carrying the final two boxes down to the truck. Katya lets out a string of curse words as her toes catch on the edge of the rug in the main area, she could be curled up on the catch, watching TV or just reading a book, trying to at least enjoy her day off but no. Ginger offered to help with packing and dragged Kaya to do the same. And Katya does not understand her logic, at all, because as far as she is aware Ginger can’t stand Vaness the most out of the two of them.

Her best friend doesn’t make sense but Katya has no other option than to be ok with it.

After loading up the truck with the last two boxes the pair bump into Courtney who is laughing her head off, standing next to a flabbergasted Willam. Scanning the street in the general direction they are both looking, Katya lets out a loud roar of a laugh when she notices how her now ex-roommate has Jason pinned against one side of the truck.  

“She is eating their face!” Willam exclaims which only makes Courtney and Katya laugh even harder.

Ginger is just behind them all shaking her head as Jason is trying really hard to pull away. Jason takes a look at the four watching the interaction, and gently takes Vanessa’s arms to unwrap them from their neck. The kiss ends there, and Jason feels like there is saliva all over their mouth. They gasp for air as they send an awkward smile to the girl in front of them, who is still staring at them with big dreamy eyes.

Satisfied with the kiss, Vanessa winks at Jason before waving to the other four. She opens the door of the passenger seat and climbs in, and like that she is gone.

“C'mon Jason, let’s go wash out your mouth with soap before Matt can taste Vanessa on your tongue.” Willam jokes as he tugs on their arm. The look on Jason’s face resembles something to a rabbit caught in the headlights, which only makes Katya giggle.

“Please don’t tell hi-” Jason begins to plea before Willam cuts them off.

“None of us have a death wish, don’t worry your pretty little head.” And with that the group makes their way back to their respective apartments but with Courtney opting to join the other two girls instead of going back with Willam and Jason.

“Should we, like make an ad or something?” Katya asks when they are back in the apartment.

“No don’t make an ad, you’ll attract all the murderers.” Courtney chimes in. “Make a list.”

“Yes! Let’s make a list,” Katya exclaims. “What about?” She asks with a chuckle.

“About what we are looking for in our new roommate,” Ginger says with a grin on her lips turning around to find a pencil and notebook in her own bedroom. She returns a few moments later and gives them to Courtney so she can write for them.

“Can she be, like, taller than us?” Katya asks with hopeful blue eyes. “I’ve always been the tallest roommate and I think I deserve a break from climbing to get to the top shelf,” she explains after receiving a confused look from her best friend.

Ginger laughs but nods and Courtney wastes no time in scribbling down point one. “Okay, what else?” The Aussie asks looking at the other two.

“She must be a girl,” Katya suddenly says after a couple of minutes in silence. She has wide eyes and parted lips as she looks at Ginger expectantly. “I have never lived with a boy, never have, never will.”

“Hey! Courtney protests after writing down 'must be girl’ in the notebook. "I live with Willam and it isn’t that bad at all.”

“But that is Willam, that’s different.”

“Anyway,” Ginger speaks up. “How about must be clean and responsible?” Katya nods and Courtney jots it down.

“Quiet,” Katya adds.

“Funny,” Ginger fires after a beat. “Actually, scratch that, I’m the funny one here.”

“Excuse me?” Katya jabs at her playfully, not really taking any offence.

“Well, ladies, I guess that’s all.” Courtney smiles, ripping out the page and giving the paper to Katya. “Think you can find someone with all of that?” She asks curiously.

“I guess we’ll find out when we start living with her,” Katya reasons after revising the list.

“I’m going to go get ready and check on the other two, I’ll see you later,” shortly after Courtney was leaving the apartment.

“Don’t suppose you fancy tagging along to Chuck’s with us?”

“No,” Katya quickly responds shaking her head.

“Come on, Kat, it’s been so long since you hung out with all of us outside the apartment block,” Ginger pleads. “It’s not the same without you there.”

“Why would I want to hang out somewhere, on my day off, where I work?” Katya questions with an arched brow.

“Because we’re your friends and it’s a different experience when you’re the customer, plus no one else besides me know you work there so that excuse won’t fly with them.” Ginger crosses her arms over her chest. “Unless you want to tell them what you actually do.”

Chuck's is a local bar a few blocks away from the apartment block and every Friday night it holds a karaoke night. Katya isn’t proud of her job she does at Chucks but it pays good money, nice company, and gives her self-esteem. She keeps it from as many people as she can, including her friends, but had to have someone to confide in so she chose the closest person to her, Ginger. Outside the pairs knowledge, the group discovered Chuck’s through Courtney, who had found it last year when she planned on dragging Willam along to karaoke to forget a break up. The two ended up loving it there and so went back the next week, and the next, and the next until they eventually persuaded the rest of the gang to go along with them. Katya used to go every fortnight but slowly stopped going until she completely stopped a few months ago. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to hang out with her friends, quite opposite actually, she just never fairs too well in social environments that she isn’t performing in. That being said, the fact she works there definitely doesn’t add anything to reasons why Katya should go to Chuck’s, it is just a disaster waiting to happen.

“Alright,” Ginger clasps her hands together before pulling Katya into a tight hug. “But just this one time.” Ginger nods with a smirk on her face.

“You’ll enjoy it, I promise it.”

•

Katya is still in the bathroom when she hears three knocks on the front door. She curses under her breath for her friends actually being punctual for once and opens the bathroom door with just a towel wrapped around her body, but then she sees Ginger already making her way to the door so she runs to her own bedroom quickly before she can open it.

The clock on her nightstand reads eight o'clock sharp. She quickly dresses, pulling on a pair of black tights, throwing on a red t-shirt dress that reads 'Bonjour’ in white across the front of it and partners it with black thigh high boots. She smudges some black eyeshadow on her eyelids, coats her lashes with mascara and matches her outfit with a classic red lip.

“Look who decided to join us,” Jason says from the kitchen door when they spot her, a red apple in one hand. “Are you ready, Katya?”

“Yes,” she answers running a hand through her damp hair and watches as they take a bite of their apple. “Where’s the girls?” Katya ask looking around the living room, where there is no sign of her friends.

“Getting shoes from Ginger’s room,” Jason answers slightly muffled due to the mouthful of fruit they have. Katya rolls her eyes when they grin at her cheekily.

She walks to the bathroom and starts blow-drying her hair while she waits for the other two girls to come out of Ginger’s room. After ten minutes her hair is fully dry and she joins the rest of the group. After a couple more minutes, they are all on their way to Chuck’s

Chuck’s is a nice place with a good vibe, dim lights, a reasonable stage, a great live band and the performers tend to be fantastic. It had really stepped up its game since it came under new management.

Katya follows Ginger to the group’s regular semi-circle booth, facing the stage. There aren’t many people around considering it’s early. Ginger scoffs at the performer currently butchering a Mariah Carey song while looking around trying to find any familiar faces. Her blue eyes light up when she sees a tall skinny figure at the side of the stage, seemly being the only one enjoying the performance going on.

“Max!” Ginger yells over the music, waving her hands to catch the guy’s attention. Katya freezes besides her best friend as she calls over the stage hand, who will most definitely recognise her. Katya follows where Ginger is looking at with her eyes and soon sees a familiar grey-haired guy making his way over to them.

“Hi, guys,” the tall guy greets them smiling at each one of Katya’s friends before he lets his eyes linger a little bit on Katya’s face. “Katya, it’s so good to see you here!”

“You two know each other?” Willam questions with an arched brow.

“Yoga,” Katya blurts out. “He goes to my yoga class.” Katya looks at Max out of the corner of her eyes, silently begging him to go with the pre-planned bullshit.

“You go to yoga?” Willam asks clearly not buying it.

“Yeah, have been for a few weeks now.” Max shrugs off the uncertainty as he straightens his back before looking at Ginger. “So, you finally managed to make her cave and come then?”

“Turns out it wasn’t too difficult.”

Katya can feel the panic rising in her throat so she politely excuses herself and strolls towards the bar. When she gets there, she spots Shea talking with a new blonde. Katya knows she is new because this is the first time she has ever seen her in Chuck’s. The blonde is facing Katya’s direction which allows her to study her face. Her hair is a honey blonde, whereas Katya’s is more on the platinum side of the scale, and is pulled up onto the top of her head in to a large messy bun. Her makeup isn’t the subtlest but then again, she is working in a dimly lit bar, not many people are going to comment on her face. Her eyeliner is thick with wing flicking upwards at the end, her lips look ever so slightly overdrawn and are neon pink from what Katya can tell. The girl perks up when she spots Katya at the end of the bar and excuses herself from the conversation. Shea turns to see where she was heading and smiles when she spots Katya.

“Hi, what can I get for you?” The blonde asks as she stares at Katya. If Katya thought she was beautiful from the small distance between them before, then she definitely thought she was beautiful with just the width of the bar counter between them.

“I’ll get this one Trix, she gets a special order you’ll learn soon enough." Shea shouts over to the blonde who glances over her shoulder and smiles.

The girl leans on the bar using her elbows as her support. From the angle and height Katya is sitting at on the barstool, and the new angle the girl is at, Katya has a perfect view of the girl’s cleavage. Katya fights the urge to peak when Shea slides a small glass over to her.

"Poured a little something special in it for you tonight, just don’t tell Pepp." Shea gave a weak smile as she pulls over the only stool they kept behind the bar that Katya normally sits on during quieter nights between sets. "How’d they convince you to come?”

Katya looks at the new girl as she took a sip who was watching and listening to Katya and Shea's interaction attentively. “Ginger backed me into a corner verbally, her speciality. Who’s the new girl?”

Katya feels bad immediately because she didn’t ask the girl directly herself. That was the thing with Katya when she knows someone she is fine, when she is performing she is fine, but when faced with new people she flakes.

“Katya, this is Trixie," Shea motions at the blonde behind the bar. "This is her first night.”

Katya nods drinking more of her drink. “And Trix, this is Katya who is at the intersection of glamour and comedy. You can find her right on the corner, selling her ass.”

Katya chuckles lightly. “Stop giving away all my secrets to newbies, Brenda.” Katya looks at Trixie before speaking. “What she means is stick around long enough and you’ll see me half-naked in front of a room of strangers.”

Both Shea and Katya barks out laughter at Trixie, who has parted lips and wide eyes, clearly surprised. “Katya here, is the dancer I was telling you about.” Trixie looks at Katya who smiles back at her.  

“You think you could tell Dan, to put on a batch of his famous fries?” Katya asks Shea who pushes herself off of the stool and goes through the small kitchen joined onto the bar leaving Katya and Trixie alone.

“So, what got you into your dancing?” Trixie asks, she seems sincere with her tone.

“Please don’t call it dancing, it makes it seem proper and it isn’t. But I needed money and Pepp knew me and when the spot opened up she got me it. I’m not proud of it but it pays the rent.” Katya replies.

“I think, while it may not be the most appropriate thing in the world, it is still an art form.” Trixie smiles as she pushes herself to stand up straight. “I, for one, can’t wait to see you in action.”

Katya almost chokes on her drink and almost spits it back at Trixie. “Besides, I’m not a dancer, I just move my body in a compelling way…compelling them to leave.”

“Girl don’t act brand new, you’re the reason this place has seen a boom in customers." Shea joins the conversation again, this time also being joined by Peppermint. "Dan said they’ll be right up and says to say hey.”

Katya nods as she turns to look at Peppermint who had by now walked around to her side of the bar. “Hey Pepp.”

“Hi, Kat, I’ve been told Ginger managed to convince you to come to the bar on your only day off.” She stops to laugh. “You really can’t say no to anyone can you?” Katya shrugs as she slides the glass back to Shea who catches it before it stops. “And you’ve met Trixie as well.”

“We’ve talking about her dan-”

“Not dancing.” Katya cuts her off before she can finish the word.

“We’ve been talking about her performances” Trixie says almost more as a question than a statement.

“Anyway. Pepp you don’t happen to know anyone who needs a place to live do you?” Katya inquires.

“I might know someone, why, Vanessa leave or something?” Peppermint responds as she takes a seat next to Katya on a barstool. Katya nods looking to the side at her.  

“Are they female, clean, responsible, quiet and possibly funny but not too funny so Ginger won’t feel threatened?” Katya asks as she rattles off the list they made at the apartment earlier.

“I’d say so, what do you say Trix, are you all of those things.” Katya whips her head back to look at Trixie who resembles a doe who’s just been startled and is looking to flee.

“Um, I guess?”

Katya looks back at her table and then back at Trixie. “If you can take a break you can meet the gang and I guess we’ll see what happens from there.”

Trixie likes to think of herself as a calm and collected person. That being said, she was a nervous wreck. She could fake it all she wanted but it didn’t take very much to reduce her to an epitome of anxiety. After everything she had gone through with her step-father she had expected life to be easier, to have a thicker skin and be more confident, but that sadly wasn’t the case. It was Peppermint who met her the first time she stepped into Chuck’s.

Trixie had been cycling through the city when a car had driven through a puddle at an obnoxious speed right by her, soaking her from head to toe in the process. She was cold and beginning to shivering not used to just how cold it was yet. She had maybe wheeled her bike down a block or two before she came across a flyer advertising a job opening at a local bar. She didn’t need much persuading after she read that she could start as soon as possible, after all, she needed a job until she found her big break in the music industry. After wheeling her way back to her shared apartment with two strangers she phoned in about an interview.  

Trixie remembers her first experience with Chuck’s. It was a Thursday night, fairly early as far as bar standards go, some comedy act was on the stage. It smelt like old cigarettes and whiskey, was poorly lit, but it seemed cosy. It seemed like a place Trixie could see herself working at. Luckily, Chuck, the manager liked Trixie, something about her enthusiasm did the trick. She was leaving the office when she accidently bumped into a slightly smaller, gorgeous black woman. Pulling back Trixie apologised profusely as the women just beamed a smile at her. “It’s ok, baby.” She had said ending Trixie’s apologises. She had given Trixie the once over before speaking again. The rest of the night Trixie had stayed tucked in by Peppermint’s side, sitting on a stool stage-side where she met Max and watched Peppermint assassinate the stage. Trixie had never intended to stay past her interview but then she found Peppermint and was enthralled by her stage presence, it was that moment she decided even if she didn’t get the job she’d still spend her time here. It would get her out of the house and away from her shitty roommates.

Luckily, Trixie did get the job and she would get paid to serve customers, be surrounded by good company and watch amazing talent. But with the money came higher expectations form her roommates, who had said as Trixie left tonight that part of her pay check will have to go towards rent now, and by part they will probably take it all. Peppermint introduced her to Shea when she arrived to Chuck’s. The three have been talking since, until more customers started to come in.

Now Trixie was walking just behind Katya nodding her head to everything she was saying not really paying any mind to the words she was actually speaking. Occasionally she peaks over at Peppermint who was sticking two thumbs at her. Relax, Trixie thinks to herself, they’ll think you’re weird if you don’t. In and out, slow and even, and Trixie will be fine. Except she isn’t. She is in her head too much and she is bound to stumble on her wording and make a fool of herself just like she did in high school for all those years, and in college.

Katya stops abruptly and Trixie wonders if something is wrong. Maybe she has changed her mind and doesn’t want Trixie potentially living with her. After all, they had just met. “Is something wrong?” Trixie inwardly cringes at how frail her voice sounds.

Katya turns on her heels to face Trixie with a blank expression on her face, completely unreadable. Trixie twirls the hem of her apron between her two hands as she rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet. Nervous habits she’s picked up throughout the years. “No one besides Ginger knows I work here, and I’d like to keep it that way, okay?”

“Why don’t-” Trixie’s sentence drifts off when she sees Katya’s expression. “Right, right, not proud. Got it!”

The two start walking again until they get back to the semi-circular booth the rest of the group is sitting at. Max has by now disappeared and the group are fully engrossed in the performer on stage. Trixie knew them to be a singer that goes by the name Adore most of the time. The group seems to notice Katya returning and taking her seat before they notice Trixie standing awkwardly until Katya pulls Trixie down to sit half on the chair, half off it. But Trixie doesn’t complain no matter how uncomfortable she is because Katya is making an effort and that’s more than most people do.

“Guys, meet Trixie.” Katya snaps her fingers in front of a small ginger women’s face before motioning to Trixie. The women eyes Trixie up suspiciously and it’s enough to make Trixie’s skin crawl.

“I thought you fell down the toilet for moment there,” she says with a southern drawl to her voice to Katya before turning her gaze back to Trixie. “I’m Ginger and I apologise for anything this wacko has done.”

Trixie plasters a small smile on her face and she can only hope it isn’t coming across as too forced. “She’s been a delight.”

“That’s a first,” Ginger laughs.

“Ginger how soon is too soon to start living with someone,” Katya asks whilst playing with a napkin that was on the table in front of her. The group is quiet as they all share a similar sense of confusion.  

“What are you planning?” Trixie shifts in her seat trying to remain unfazed, but Ginger’s tone has the slightest slither of something uncertain that threw Trixie off.

“Because I think Trixie could be our new roommate.”

#rpdr fanfiction #when roses bloom #trixya #pearlet #witney #bramble #roommate au #lesbian au #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #trans!trixie #trans character #willam belli #courtney act #pearl liaison #violet chachki #ginger minj #max malanaphy #tatianna #shea coulee #kim chi #trannika rex #peppermint

[veronicasanders]

I was tagged by the beautiful and always delightful @wednesdayangeline​

I’m tagging @collidinggalaxiesofstars​ @theofficialcunt​ @artificialscorpio​ @spokywrites​ @civonumist​ @courtneyskoala​ @the-dilemma-of-being-emma​ @missdandee​ @poppy-hore​

1. name? Veronica

2. nickname? V

3. undercover name? Um. See above. lol

4. drag name? (This was pornstar but I changed it) Ooh, I can’t commit. I’m a big fan of the “my first name is for x and my last name is for y” school of drag names. So I’d probably go for something like Bellamy Brewster. Bellamy for 1800s Socialist Utopian Novelist Edward Bellamy, and Brewster for 80s sitcom idol Punky Brewster.

5. middle name? My porn writing pseudonym has no middle name.

6. first born son or daughters name? I’m going to adopt teenagers, they’ll already have names. But if any of them are pregnant, I will encourage names with lots of potential nicknames and sassy middle names they can go by if they are cool enough to pull them off.

7. age first kiss? 13

8. age first crush? I remember having innocent little crushes around preschool/kindergarten

9. age when you first knew what you wanted to do? Well, when I was a kid I wanted to be an actor, and I went to film school for college, but I’ve been working in the entertainment industry for years and I’m totally sick of it and I want to go back to school for sociology. So I guess...now? lol

10. age when you met your best friend? I have a few but the person I’m closest to now I was 27

11. favourite song? Well my favorite album is the Immaculate Collection, but right now I’m listening to “Tuck Tape” on repeat.

12. favourite colour? Rainbow Glitter

13. favourite film? Depends on my mood. Today I was discussing what my favorite movie is that I would be embarrassed to admit, and we discovered that I have no shame and am totally proud of my taste, even if they are considered terrible. We finally settled on the 90s TV movie starring Tori Spelling and Kellie Martin called “To Kill a Cheerleader.” Or sometimes it’s called “A Friend to Die For.” Fun fact: it’s awesome and based on a true story. Also “Troop Beverly Hills” but I took major issue with them saying that was a bad movie because IT’S AN AMAZING MOVIE which also happened to feature both Kellie Martin and Tori Spelling.

14. favourite actor? Everyone on Sense8

15. favourite actress? Everyone on Degrassi

16. favourite time of year? Autumn (ME TOO WEDNESDAY!!!!!!!)

17. favourite animal? My dog.

18. favourite country? Anywhere but Trump’s America

19. favourite person in the whole world? My lil brother. (SAME!!! I mean I’m sure your brother is nice too but I mean mine.)

20. favourite food? Mac and cheese and chocolate mousse

21. favourite feeling? That thing of when you just start to go down the drop in a roller coaster

22. least favourite song? Maybe that country one about shoving a boot up yer ass ‘cause “It’s the American way”

23. least favourite film? Probably ones I don’t watch?

24. least favourite actor/actress? I dunno, Mel Gibson? Jon Voigt? Kelsey Grammar? The mom from Everybody Loves Raymond? Basically all the Hollywood Republicans who CONSTANTLY WHINE about how hard it is to be conservative in Hollywood? Cry me a river.

25. least favourite event? Pole vault.

26. least favourite food? Raw onions and curry.

27. least favourite feeling? Causing someone pain.

28. best feeling in the world? Making someone happy.

29. quote to the world? May the most you want be the least you get.

30. best memory? Probably vacations with my grandparents

31. best gift ever given? To me - my American girl doll. From me - taking my cousins to a 21 course tasting menu at this awesome restaurant in LA. It was a super fun night and we got to pretend we were fancy as fuck.

32. favourite alcohol drink? If I’m being really extravagant, a chocolate martini or Pina Colada. But normally I drink a vodka soda with a splash of cranberry.  

33. guilty pleasure? Real Housewives

34. best superhero? Mystique (is she a villain? I don’t care I love her. Also Rogue and Superman.)

35. best place in the whole world? I haven’t seen enough of the world to make this judgement. But I really liked Rio.

36. celebrity crush? Courtney Act

37. who’d play you in the movie of your life? Christina Ricci

38. who’d be your love interest? Courtney Act, Zoe Kravitz, Taye Diggs

39. who’d provide the soundtrack to your movie? Madonna. Duh.

40. favourite cartoon? South Park

41. character /person you can most relate to? Madonna, Tina Fey, Julie Kessler on Difficult People, Freddie Brooks from A Different World

42. sun or rain? rain

43. Adele or Ed Sheeran? Adele

44. Taylor Swift or Kanye West? I feel guilty for liking Taylor’s music more. If it were Sophie’s Choice I’d let Taylor die though.

45. pale or tanned? I look better tan but I don’t get enough sun so I’m mostly pale. But I’m olive complexion pale.

46. USA or UK? The UK - And I say that as a US citizen who’s never visited the UK. So. There’s that.

47. cash or card? What is cash? That paper stuff that people used before venmo and PayPal?

48. blonde or brain? I am too old to understand this question. Does this have to do with a songbird or yanking one’s telephone out of the wall?

49. secret talent? I know a really good travel agent. Not impressed? Wait until you’re stranded in an airport sometime.

50. if you had to make your own religion what would it be? Be Nicer and Gimme All Your Money.

51. Audition song? I used to use “SHY” from Once Upon a Mattress.

52. Britain or America’s got talent? Drag Race

53. favourite Disney movie? The Little Mermaid

54. do you love or hate game of thrones? Love, but mostly because I love the Funny or Die recap show “Gay of Thrones”

55. nicest person you’ve ever met: My cousin. I tried to get her to be sassy all weekend and she wouldn’t. She’s infuriatingly sweet.

#I love you wednesday

[theharrystyleseffect]

A long survey

Thanks @heart-attack-harry for tagging me, keeping my head a bit occupied. 😘

1 - Who was the last person you texted? Uhm. Think it was my mum.

2 - When is your birthday? 11 November.

3 - Who do you want to be with right now? Esmeralda.

4 - What sports do you play? Getting out of bed in the morning.

5 - Who is the first person in your contacts? A guy named Adam.

6 - What is your favorite song as of the moment? Meet Me In The Hallway.

7 - If you were stranded on an island, who do you wish to be with? Peter Pan cos he could fly me home.

8 - What do you feel right now? An ache in my back and a sorrow in my heart fdghj But I’m okay.

9 - What chocolate is your favorite? Ehm. I think... I dunno. Norwegian chocolate. Or Belgian.

10 - How many boyfriends/girlfriends did you have? Okay, if we’re counting them childhood love, then 3. 

11 - Why did you create a Tumblr account? This one I made specifically so I could geek over Harry’s incredible talent with other geeks.

12 - Who is your favorite blogger? I have a-many. @heart-attack-harry @linnsometimes @harryandgaga @styloffonpostlimit @harrysimpact @savage-styles @cantquitu @adorkablehazza @johnlennon-harrystyles @hazzwatch (CRY) but a lot of the others have changed their urls and I’m quickly losing track of them. Please, kids. I miss knowing who you are! 

13 - Where do you want to be right now? In a very hot tub.

14 - What do you want to be in the future? A fucking rockstar.

15 - When was the last time you cried? All day yesterday.

16 - Are you happy? Happiness is a warm gun and do you see me sitting on one?

17 - Who do you miss? My childhood. Not necessarily what went on, just... I want a way to do it over again, but differently.

18 - If you were given a chance, would you like to have a different life? Oh hell yeah!

19 - What was the best thing you were given? My love for music.

20 - Who was the last person who called you? Mum. They’re currently in a caravan, on their way to visit me.

21 - What is your favorite dish? Potatoes. Anything chips, really.

22 - Who is your bestfriend? @adorkablehazza and @linnsometimes. Very lucky to have the two of them in my life online and outline.

23 - What is your biggest regret? Bukowski said, “regret is mostly caused by not having done anything,” and so I have a lot of them, too many to count.

24 - Have you ever cheated on your partner? No.

25 - Who do you spend crazy moments with? My pals, the triforce. A fucking nerdy bunch.

26 - Name someone pretty. Harry Styles’ nips.

27 - Who was the last person you hugged? My flattymate. 

28 - What kind of music do you listen to? I...don’t know where my taste falls, I just know I don’t like whatever category Justin Bieber falls in. His music rubs me wrong. 

29 - Are you over your past? I’m in therapy.

30 - Who is the last person in your contacts? A guy named Martin.

31 - What kind of person do you want to date? A musically gifted or musically nerdy guy with lots of humour, charm and intelligence. I like to learn stuff and I love deep and long conversations. I’m not asking too much.

32 - Do you have troubles sleeping at night? owh HELL yaz, I’m a professional insomniac. Today I fell asleep at 10 am (!). 

33 - From whom was the last text message you received? Mum. She texts a lot when on the road.

34 - What do you prefer, jeans or skirt? Going naked. Or Jeans.

35 - How’s your heart? Missing dead stuff.

36 - Did you ever have a girlfriend/boyfriend whose name starts with a “J”? Janove. Where art thou. My heart is still wide open.

37 - Do you like someone as of the moment? Naeh. 

38 - What would you want to say to your latest ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend? I’d give him a cheeky smile and say, “Remember me?” 

39 - Do you have any phobias? Spiders!!!!!!!!!!!! Life in general.

40 - Did you try to change for a person? Oh no. Nothing in this world can ever make me change for someone else, I’m way too stubborn for that and always have been. 

41 - What’s the nicest thing you haven given to someone? My heart. 

42 - Would you go back to your previous relationship? No.

43 - Are you in a good or bad mood? I’m fine. Content.

44 - Name someone you can’t live without. Flattymate.

45 - Describe your dream date. Hm. If there’s a telescope involved then count me in. Music. Telescope. The night sky. Something nice to drink, and just a generally long fucking conversation about astrophysics, the philosophy of life, planet and stars. That, or full music geek out.

46 - Describe your dream wedding. In space.

47 - How many roses did you receive last Valentine’s? I’ve never received anything on valentines day.

48 - Have you ever been kissed? Deep, hot and rowdy. 

49 - How long is your longest relationship? 1 years.

50 - Do you regret your past? Do I have to quote Bukowski again.

51 - Can you do something stupid for someone else? I always do. Majority of my time goes away to doing stupid things.

52 - Have you ever cried over someone? Yeh.

53 - Do you have a grudge against anyone? Just my dad.

54 - Are you a crybaby? No, my childhood hardened me. But I’ve gotten a lot more sensitive in recent years.

55 - Do people praise you for your looks? They used to when I had a pinup fringe. Strangers could stop me on the street to compliment me. It was very sweet of them.

56 - Did you fall for someone you shouldn’t? He was married. Is. Still is married. 

57 - Have you ever done something bad but you don’t regret? (Insert Bukowski quote) 

58 - Do you like getting hurt? In what way?

59 - Does anyone hate you? If so it’s because of my incredible brains and nothing else.

60 - Did you slap anyone whose name starts with an “R”? Sure, why not.

61 - What hair color do you prefer? Black on myself. Red is second in line.

62 - If you can change anything about yourself, what is it? Appearance and mental health.

63 - Do you love someone as of the moment? I really don’t know what love is, but I do love my people and my cat.

64 - Have you ever thought of killing yourself? I have.

65 - Do you have issues with somebody in your school? My old classmates *grits teeth* and the old teachers who are probably dead by now *huffs like a horse* and the headmaster! All shitty people.

66 - Can you live without internet? Harry Styles is a part of the internet so no.

67 - What’s the song that remind you of your special someone? A song called Under Månen. 

68 - Are you good at holding back your tears? It used to be my specialty. I cracked a few years ago, though. Lost my no-tears diploma and everything.

69 - Are you a crybaby? Only Johnny Depp can answer this question. 

70 - Have you ever experienced being hysterical? MhM. 

71 - Are you a KPOP fan? No, but I KNOW OF BTS cos my best friend is head over her heelz for them, so I know a few songs and I can point out Suga’s face in a crowd cos he’s fucking cute.

72 - Do you study hard? I’m not studying at the moment, but if I have to study something closer like, in a magnifying glass then sure. I go hard.

73 - Have you ever sacrificed something important to you for someone you love? No, cos I am my own island.

74 - Did you ever had a kiss under the moonlight? With a brit! It was sexy.

75 - Have you ever ridden a boat? Countless of times.

76 - Did you have an accident last year? Dude, I have an accident every day. It’s called sleeping past noon.

77 - What kind of person are you? Someone very curious and very weird, and also incredibly kind with a lot of love for the littlest things. Except from fucking spiders, they can all die.

78 - Have you ever thought of killing someone? Read question number 77. 

79 - Have you ever been jealous? Probably.

80 - How can you prove your love to someone? By forcing them in a hug.

81 - What are you thinking right now? That I’m looking forward to holding my parents’ dog on Monday.

82 - Who is the 6th person in your contacts? Old classmate from high school.

83 - Do you have any memories you want to erase? A fucking lot of them but they’re a part of making me me, so I guess none unless someone can give me a brand new life.

84 - Have you been hurt so bad that you can’t find words to explain how you feel? Yes.

85 - Did you ever badmouth someone? Tons.

86 - Have you ever had an argument with someone? I’m a fucking stubborn person, so it’s inevitable. 

87 - Do you have trust issues? YeEes. Thanks dad! 😘

88 - Are you broken-hearted? From listening to Harry Styles’ debut album I was.

89 - Who’s the person who first comes to your mind when someone mentions “love”? Music.

90 - Do you think all the pain is worth it? I actually don’t. I think this world is vicious and for what?

91 - Do you believe in the phrase “If it’s meant to be, it will be”? I do. I believe you have to work for it if you really want it, but when working and if it happens, it’s meant to happen, y’know? So it’s a bit doubled edged. 

92 - Who do you want to marry? Myself. Or, y’know, I could marry Harry and take his last name. I’d like that. 

93 - Do you believe in destiny? I believe in cause and effect.

94 - Have you ever thought “I already found my soulmate”? I sometimes wonder if my flattymate is that soulmate. She’s like a twin soul to me.

95 - How do you look right now? Like I’ve been inside a tumble dryer. My hair’s full of knots.

96 - Do you believe that first true love never dies? I think the saying means your first love will never be forgotten, which I believe to be true cos first experiences have a habit of sticking to your memory.

97 - Have you found your true love? In music.

98 - What should you be doing right now? Probably something productive.

99 - Name one of your ex-boyfriends/ex-girlfriends. Can it be Damon Albarn? Please? 

100 - Did you ever feel like you’re not good enough? Yeah.

Right! Bedways is rightways now, so best we go homeways. I’m gonna be cheeky like Courtney who tagged me, and tag the ones I have mentioned so far. Enjoy the 100 years old questionnaire! I think I come off a bit pessimistic so, sorry in advance. 

#things I've been tagged in

[moviemagistrate]

2016 Movie Year in Review

All the 2016 movies I saw, ranked from worst to best, with superlatives in the end.

Notes: 

1. I apologize for some of these reviews being half-assed. I went a bit overboard with this and at a certain point just wanted to be done.

2. Thank you for reading this. Even if you don’t read it all, just pretend that you did and tell me how great I am. I love validation.

3. If you disagree with any of my reviews, please tell me, so I can explain precisely why your taste is shit. I also welcome regular discussion.

91. Diablo – In what was a recurring theme in 2016, I saw this under-the-radar Western despite its’ shitty reviews. I was never one to let critics influence my own opinion on something, and I figured that Scott (son of Clint) Eastwood’s Western debut with a supporting performance from personal-fave Walton Goggins couldn’t be that bad. Well, if it’s completely forgotten about and accomplishes nothing else (it already has been and it doesn’t), “Diablo” shows that even the majority of people can sometimes be totally, totally right.

This film is about a young Civil War veteran whose sexy wife gets kidnapped and he goes out on a journey to rescue her. Along the way, we start to realize that the motivations in the kidnapping and the rescue aren’t so simple, etc. The premise is decent and it starts out well (with one hell of an entrance for Eastwood’s character) but the longer the movie goes on, the exponentially faster it falls apart.

This is one of the most poorly-made and ineptly-written actual movies I’ve ever seen. It’s kind of like an Ed Wood flick minus the schlocky charm. None of the characters in this movie act or talk like actual human beings. It’d be surreal if it felt intentional. I’ve written better screenplays on toilet paper, and I don’t mean with a pen. The dialogue is awful and often goes nowhere, the direction is confusing, guns are shot with zero recoil (a personal trigger for me, no pun intended), the acting (even from good actors like Goggins and Danny Glover) sucks, the plot twist is retarded and obvious from a minute into the movie, and I’m willing to bet that even the catering for this film wasn’t that great either.

If Scott Eastwood wants a future in Westerns (or movies in general), I would ask/bribe/intimidate everyone who saw this film to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which shouldn’t be hard since so few people saw it. “Diablo” has nice intentions, but intentions will only get you so far when everyone involved in the creative process is so inept at their job that they make Sony/Warner Bros. executives look almost competent. It’s would all be hilarious if it wasn’t so damn dull. It feels a bit mean giving my bottom spot to a tiny, independent movie with almost no release when there’s plenty of studio-produced garbage to choose from (more on that shortly), but trust me, even in a shitty year for film like 2016, “Diablo” deserves it.

Nice cinematography, though.

90. Suicide Squad – I’m probably going to spoil parts of the movie here. I also probably won’t proofread this review after I finish writing it. I don’t care, honestly, because just thinking about the aptly-named “Suicide Squad” makes me lose the will to live.

I went into this film expecting it to be garbage even before the negative reviews started pouring in. When I heard that Warner Bros. were planning massive reshoots and rewrites to “make the movie more light-hearted”, a million red flags went up for me. It’s one thing to add in a few additional shots or lines, but WB wanted to fundamentally alter the film’s DNA, while still retaining much of the original footage. The result isn’t so much a new film but rather two films horrifically Frankensteined together, not unlike last year’s “Fantastic Four” (how’s that for a comparison?) The first half is atrocious. It’s just a series of introductions to the main cast that all feel like badly-edited music videos. EVERY. GODDMAN. SCENE in the first half of the movie has some really out-of-place popular song that is not only groan-inducing but also doesn’t fit the tone of the scene in most cases. Slipknot doesn’t even get one of these introductions (not that it matters much since he’s killed off about 10 minutes after we first meet him). His intro amounts to another character saying the funniest line of the movie; “That’s Slipknot. He can climb ANYTHING.” Whoa, watch out for this bad motherfucker.

I don’t know how much of this you can blame on the reshoots, but the plot is fundamentally retarded, as well. Putting aside the basic idea that the contingency plan for a rogue god-like superhero is just a small team of criminals with guns and melee weapons, only two of whom have actual powers, the story progression beats are just plain dumb. The main villain is an all-powerful witch that was supposed to be on the squad but escapes because the government was very lenient in looking after her. Upon being rescued, Viola Davis’ government higher-up kills her subordinates because they “didn’t have clearance” or something like that, even though it was literally their job to help her run everything. At one point, the Joker shows up, takes Harley Quinn away from the squad, only to crash and die (but not really), and she just returns a minute later. In wanting to show his trust, the soldier in charge of the Squad smashes his explosion-app phone, and allows them to leave if they want to. In the ONLY genuinely funny moment in the movie, comic relief character Captain Boomerang wordlessly gets up and leaves. In a move I will never forgive Warner Bros. for, he just returns unceremoniously a minute later (there might be a boomerang joke there, but that’s giving the script too much credit). During the climax, the Squad has a fight with the witch, during which no one even gets hurt so it feels pretty pointless, before she says to stop and tries to coax them into joining her by making them envision and promising them their greatest desires (once again wasting the character’s potential, Captain Boomerang’s is never shown).

The characters might have been the saving grace, but they are all handled incredibly poorly. Despite being “bad guys” (which they verbally remind each other and the audience throughout), they are more like quirky Guardians of the Galaxy-esque heroes, spouting quips and doing the right thing even when it’s against their supposed nature. El Diablo makes sense, as he’s trying to repent for his sins, but why do the rest of them have morals? Why, during Diablo’s story about how he accidentally killed his family, does Harley Quinn un-ironically give him a “how could you do such a monstrous thing?” reaction. What little character development any of them have feels rushed and/or forced, where by the end they are willing to sacrifice themselves for each other and calling themselves a “family” despite having only met a few hours earlier and only exchanged a few quips here and there. Where they could have made genuinely interesting characters by making the main-characters actual villainous anti-heroes who act against the government even while working for them, Warner Bros. just made them typical Marvel heroes, spouting typical Marvel quips while killing typical Marvel cannon-fodder enemies and trying to close a typical Marvel sky portal that can destroy the world or whatever it was supposed to do, except doing it all worse. It doesn’t help that Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc, Katana, and even Joker are all useless and have literally no practical purpose for being in the plot.

How do you fuck up a movie so badly that even Will Smith can’t save it? Smith is one of the few good things about this movie, basically playing his typical leading-man Will Smith persona but he’s so charismatic and likable that you can’t help but feel bad for him for being in this dreck. The rest of the cast is a mixed bag. Margot Robbie has the potential to play a good Harley Quinn, but none of her jokes work (a combination of her delivery and the awful script) and as mentioned before, she’s written to be way too sympathetic. Jai Courtney (Boomerang) had the career-first potential to be good here, but is barely used and what little comic relief he provides is squandered. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (who I was actually looking forward to in this movie) has only like 6 lines as Killer Croc underneath all that makeup, and all of them make him sound like a black stereotype; as a favor for accomplishing the mission at the end, he asks for BET in his cell, which is a step above asking for fried chicken and grape-drank, so at least there’s that. The guy playing El Diablo is alright. The actors playing Col. Flagg and Katana are forgettable. Oscar-nominee Viola Davis is actually pretty bad as the government head of the squad, looking bored throughout and giving stilted line-deliveries while failing to be intimidating. Cara Delevingne (in her witch form) looks and talks like a particularly poorly-written Game of Thrones character, and is probably the least intimidating villain I’ve ever seen in a comic book movie. Ben Affleck is in the movie for like, a minute. That’s all there is to him.

And how can I forget Jared Leto’s performance as Joker? No seriously, how? Please tell me. He decided that playing the most famous bad guy in comic history would be to act like a Tourette-afflicted edgy teenager who rebels against his upper-class parents by shopping at Hot Topic. At least he was entertainingly cringe-worthy, unlike most of the movie, which is just the regular kind. Who knows, maybe in all that cut footage of him lies a good performance or character arc, but he seems less like a demented criminal mastermind and more like the type of person who would giggle maniacally to himself after tearing the tag off of his mattress. Also, if there’s a word for the introduction version of an anti-climax, Joker’s first appearance in the film is exactly that.

In summary, the acting ranges from decent to bad, the characters are weak, the writing is abysmal, the plot is nonsensical, the tone is all over the place, the music choices are head-drillingly irritating, the action scenes are dull to the point where I zoned out quite a bit during them, and all-in-all a movie that should’ve been stylish and cool is just drab and embarrassing. I know that director David Ayer is better than this (and that he didn’t even have any say in the final edit) and I’m sure there’s a decent cut of this film somewhere, so instead of blaming him I’m going to blame Warner Bros., a studio that gives Sony Pictures a run for their money in terms of sheer incompetency. They’re in such a hurry to catch up to Marvel that they forgot to properly set up their universe and don’t even have a clear vision for what they want to accomplish, story-wise. Say what you will about the MCU and how formulaic a lot of their movies are, but at least Kevin Feige has a vision for his series and makes it work. WB saw the less-than-ideal performance of “Batman v Superman”, panicked, and butchered Ayer’s film to try and make it appeal to as many people as possible, ultimately appealing to no one.

Hell, give Zack Snyder the reigns to the DCEU. He’s not without his flaws, but he’s the closest thing to an auteur working in superhero films today and he’s infinitely more competent in telling a story than the hacks who edited the “Suicide Squad” I saw in theaters. Who is the real Suicide Squad? Is it the team of “bad guys” in the movie? Or is it the audience who is forced to endure this piece of shit? If there is justice, it will be the executives at Warner Bros. who should be forced by shareholders to commit ritualistic suicide live on The CW following “Arrow”

Or just punched in the stomach.

89. Ghostbusters – A “Ghostbusters” reboot is the most politically divisive film of 2016. It’s things like this that make me wonder if we’ve lost our way as a culture. Why people got so up in arms over the casting is beyond me. Personally, I think that anyone who condemns or praises a film solely because of the sex of its leads should be sterilized. But for months ahead of release, I saw almost nonstop articles, Tweets, and arguments about “misogyny” and “the patriarchy” and “raped childhoods” in regards to a silly comedy about people who hunt ghosts, and I started to wonder if it was actually a bad thing that the Chinese will soon take over the West (not that the Chinese would ever allow this film to be released, because Commies are afraid of ghosts or something like that).

It should come as no surprise to anyone with the slightest bit of rationality and foresight, however, that all this controversy would amount to nothing because the film is just a dull, unimaginative slog. I was expecting the movie to be shit because writer/director Paul Feig is a hack who never should have moved past television comedies, and Sony Pictures is a major movie studio run by a bunch of chimps with Down’s Syndrome, and apparently I’m better at pattern recognition than most. But honestly, I can’t even get worked up about “Ghostbusters” because it was just so boring. It never reached the point of being offensively bad like “Suicide Squad”, but this movie doesn’t really have anything going for it either. The lead actresses are fine, and could do well if they had some decent material to work with, but they aren’t funny enough to carry a very improv-heavy feature length film by themselves. A good improvised bit can be like a nice sprinkling of cinnamon on a tasty dessert, but “Ghostbusters” felt like eating several spoonfuls of cinnamon straight from the container. This felt like a modern-day SNL sketch arduously stretched out to two hours.

The improv could have worked if the leads had actual characters to work with, but each one is given just one personality trait (Leslie Jones is scared, Kate McKinnon is koooooky, Kristen Wiig is insecure, and Melissa McCarthy is…there), and they often break their trait for their banter where they constantly try to say funny things and tell jokes, making them feel like a bad college comedy-troupe instead of actual characters. Paul Feig didn’t even bother with any character development; just one forced scene where the animosity between Wiig and McCarthy’s characters, that’s forgotten within 15 minutes, is finally brought up again in the last 5. After a point, I started to feel bad for the cast. I know that McKinnon, Wiig, and McCarthy can do better than this (and have), and even Leslie Jones (who was the worst part of the trailer but is surprisingly the only likable and believable character in the film) deserves more than what she’s given. The only somewhat funny character was the mayoral aide who privately supports the team while publically insulting and condemning them.

As with Paul Feig’s other films, the plot is thin as can be (four women team up to investigate ghosts, start their own business, and before you know it, all hell breaks loose), and it feels very disjointed, with a lot of scenes feeling like they could be put in different orders and it wouldn’t make a difference. As a result, the film fails to properly ramp up in terms of stakes and motivations. There are set-ups without payoffs, and payoffs to things that were never really set up. And of course Feig can’t shoot action or comedy for shit, to the point where even a gifted physical comic like McCarthy looks like she’s lightly swinging at air in her fight scenes. He also clearly misses the R-rating he’s had so far in his feature films, where the lack of jokes is exacerbated without the crutch of swearing to lean on. Plus, as typical of a Sony Pictures movie, there’s enough forced product placement on display to make Michael Bay blush.

The lowest points of the film are the cutesy references to the original film and cameos from the original cast, with the absolute nadir being a scene with a Bill Murray who looks like he’s wondering if it’d be faster to run away from the film set (that he was sued into being on) or to slit his own throat. This just points to a studio product that plays it so safe and close to the original that it doesn’t have any identity of its own, and funnily enough, the gender-swapping of the lead roles is the only decent idea it has to differentiate itself.

As I said before, this wasn’t terrible or painful to watch (possible because I was already detached very early in the movie, but still). I got two chuckles, one from Jones and one from Chris Hemsworth, and a handful of snorts here and there. The CGI, sets, and prop-design are all colorful and surprisingly solid. But the overall movie is just mediocre and a chore to sit through. I normally don’t write lengthy reviews for comedies because there are only so many ways to say something isn’t funny, but the 2016 “Ghostbusters” just isn’t funny, and all the controversy that was brewed up (it wouldn’t surprise me if Sony manufactured the hateful reactions to the trailers themselves to drum up publicity) ultimately led to another one of the same bland, cash-grab remakes that Hollywood has been pumping out for the last several years. Now I may be a sexist, chauvinistic white cis-het misogynist shitlord, but I think the movie-going public deserves better than this, even those dumb bitc…[REDACTED]

88. The Neon Demon - A 16-year-old girl moves to LA to become a model, and finds quick success due to her good looks (and we know she looks good because none of the other characters, including her, ever stop mentioning it), but soon after finds herself succumbing to her own hubris and the jealousy of those around her. That’s literally the entire plot of the movie, minus some of the dirty specifics. Then again, you don’t see a Nicholas Winding Refn for the plot. As can be expected from any of his post-Drive films, characters speak very obvious dialogue with remarkably long pauses, they stare off into the distance a lot (even when just looking into a mirror), jarring ultraviolence occurs, and pretty red-and-blue lighting abounds.

I found NWR’s particular brand of violent, brightly colored autism amusing up to a point, but after a while, it became increasingly grating. Part of that is that the movie as a whole just feels kind of pointless. Thematically it’s quite obvious; the modeling world exploits young women, and said women are also jealous, catty bitches (at least, that’s the impression I got from Refn). But why the fuck is this movie two hours long? So much of the film is just NWR indulging in all of his trademark filming techniques at the expense of making interesting characters. Yes, there are plenty of striking visuals with their fair share of obvious symbolism, but that’s pretty much all there is to it. Much of the movie is filmed like a modeling session or a runway show (which is probably intentional), but there comes a point where you just want to shout “YES, I GET THE GODDAMN POINT, ALREADY.” After about an hour in, I just wanted it to end and couldn’t really care about what happened next. In what seemed like an attempt to rope me back in, the last 40 minutes or so is when the twisted and violent stuff starts happening, but I was less shocked and more annoyed and disgusted by what I was seeing.

The cast is alright, I suppose. The performances from Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee as the two models that become jealous of the main character are fun and biting. Keanu Reeves is surprisingly entertaining as a sleazy motel manager. As much as I hated that one particular scene with Jena Malone (you’ll know it when it happens), I commend her for being so committed to her performance to actually pull that scene off. Everyone else kind of just occupies that NWR character spectrum that exists somewhere between ethereal and autistic (leaning much closer to the latter in this film).

I hate it when people say the stuff I dislike about a movie is done intentionally. Was my boredom intentional? If, however, the prospect of having Nicholas Winding Refn slowly jerking himself off in your face for two hours while maintaining unblinking eye contact with synth music playing in the background sounds like your cup of tea, then “The Neon Demon” will satisfy your unusually specific fetish, you weirdo.

87. Triple 9 – Have you ever seen an urban police drama? Congrats, you’ve already seen “Triple 9”. Basically, there is a squad of crooked Atlanta cops who plan to rob a government building with some criminals in order to appease a mob wife (hammed-up by Kate Winslet in what could possibly be her first bad performance), and they aim to simultaneously stage the murder of a fellow cop across town so there would be little resistance during their robbery. There are ride-alongs, roughing up of suspects, lots of swearing, drug use, betrayals, etc. Pretty much every “gritty” urban crime movie cliché since the ‘90s is in this film, and very little of it is interesting. The movie only really comes alive during its action sequences. The opening bank robbery and mid-film raid especially are expertly crafted and are genuinely exciting. However, they (and a wonderful little cameo from Michael K. Williams) are the film’s only highlights, and the only other thing “Triple 9” is noteworthy for is having such a talented cast and wasting them on such been-there-done-that material. It’s not an ordeal to get through; it holds your attention and it’s thankfully not as edgy as I feared, but between the dull plot, lame dialogue, and unlikable, two-dimensional characters, “Triple 9” is more of a Single 5 (out of 10).

86. The Invitation – A man named Will, who looks like a cross between Jesus and Tom Hardy, brings his new girlfriend to a dinner party set up by his long-estranged ex-wife and her new husband. Things start to get weird when they begin talking a lot about a spirituality group they’re a part of, and Will’s paranoia over their strange behavior is made worse when all of his friends seem to accept it with no problem. I went into watching this movie with little to no expectations, and those expectations were steadily raised by the performances and direction, and it all got pissed away at the end. For a while, it seemed like a really good drama with a genuinely interesting exploration of grief, but without spoiling anything, in the third act it became the EXACT movie I was really hoping it wouldn’t become. I’m sure most people won’t have the problem with this movie that I did, and the good actors and Karyn Kusama’s strong directing (she expertly builds tension and creates a great sense of space) keep it going for the most part, even despite how dumb and illogical a lot of the characters are. But I was just so disappointed by the schlock it became that it just left a bad taste in my mouth. Accept this “Invitation” if you want, but I’m staying home instead.

85. Swiss Army Man – Look, I give it points for originality, but this was never going to be my kind of movie. It’s the kind of premise and cast (Paul Dano uses Daniel Radcliffe’s magical farting corpse to get back to civilization while learning about life) that seemed destined to be “baby’s first high-concept indie film”. I saw it because I wanted to give it a chance anyway, and while it’s not without its merits (a good deal of creativity, two committed performances, and plenty of visual flair), the endless grossout humor, montages, and really ham-fisted explanation of themes and character development wore me down to the point where I just didn’t care by the end. I would have liked for the movie to have a more straight-faced approach to the situation, which I think would have underlined the absurd humor present. Instead, we have the kind of ironic whimsy one would get if they saw a bunch of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry films and completely missed the point. I also would have liked a darker and more realistic ending, one that would actually feel like a culmination of the themes of loneliness and isolation the movie wouldn’t shut the fuck up about. As you might have guessed, the tone is all over the place, too.

If you like this movie, that’s fine. But “Swiss Army Man” is certainly not 2deep4me, and if there is any point I missed in watching it, I don’t care enough to re-watch it. Someone told me that a lot the things I found annoying about this film are intentional. Well, intentionally annoying is still. Fucking. Annoying.

84. Elvis & Nixon – The premise for this movie is really neat. On a December morning in 1970, Elvis Presley strolls up to the White House to request an emergency meeting with Richard Nixon and convince the President to swear him in as an undercover agent, leading to one of the most famous photos in U.S. history. The execution: not so great. The main problem is that the actual meeting is only the last 15-or-so minutes of the movie. The lead-up involves Elvis and his manager’s efforts to actually set up the meeting with Nixon’s staff, while Nixon is hesitant about allowing it. There is way too much stuff about the manager and his family, and Nixon’s staff. It’s not a lot of screentime, but it’s stuff/people you don’t care about in the slightest and is too much by definition (no offense to Colin Hanks, but he should really stick to TV). A lot of this stuff could have been replaced by more Elvis/Nixon, or just cut out entirely, since even at 87 minutes, the film’s length is stretched out.

Luckily, the movie is saved by the outstanding talents playing the titular characters. Michael Shannon as the King and Kevin Spacey as Tricky Dick are so good that they go beyond mere caricatures and actually feel like they embody the historical figures, even if the material is rather light. Much of the movie’s focus is on Shannon’s Elvis, and he easily holds the film together, even though you wish there was more of Nixon. The meeting between the two is of course the highlight of the movie, a wonderful stranger-than-fiction moment of history that would have made a pretty good short film. Here’s hoping for an exploitation-style sequel where they team up to fight evil drug fiends, because they deserve a movie as fun and unique as they are.

83. The Little Prince – Full confession: I wrote this review a couple of months after actually seeing “The Little Prince” on Netflix and I barely remember anything about it. I remember thinking it was a nice little animated film with a nice message about not forgetting your childhood spirit and imagination and sense of wonder as you grow up. I remember thinking that the CGI animation was nothing special (it was animated in France with a modest budget, so I won’t complain), but the stop-motion sequences were pretty impressive. I remember chuckling a few times and getting the feels once or twice.

It’s alright, from what I recall, so check it out if you like. I’m sorry if you’re a big fan of “The Little Prince” and were hoping for a more in-depth and detailed review, but I genuinely had a hard time remembering stuff about this film, which (considering the film’s message and key themes) is pretty ironic.

82. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – I was going to make a superlative at the end of this list for “most generic”, but I realized nothing came close to this Tom Cruise action thriller. This movie is so relentlessly generic that it almost feels intentional, like a satire of one of those mediocre 90’s thrillers that are shown endlessly on cable, probably as a double-feature with “U.S. Marshals”. Tom Cruise has never made a bad movie, but this is easily one of his worst ones. Typical conspiracy thriller plot from the type of shitty airport-bookstore paperback novels that boring middle-aged people enjoy (and that these movies are adapted from). Noteworthy only for the scenes with Cruise’s maybe-daughter and their dynamic, something that feels like it’s from a different movie altogether but funnily enough is the only stuff that actually works. Not terrible in any way, but this is something for a lazy Sunday afternoon or to have on in the background while you do something more interesting like ironing your clothes or vacuuming dog hair from underneath the sofa.

81. Gods of Egypt – Who would have thought that a silly fantasy movie about ancient Egyptian deities would be such a beacon for controversy the way it was prior to release? (The controversy was swiftly forgotten about, as it usually happens). Don’t get me wrong, whitewashing is certainly an issue in Hollywood, but in a film where 10-foot-tall, golden-blooded gods rule over a flat Earth consisting entirely of Egypt while Ra, the God of the Sun, rides around in a magic spaceship taking potshots at a giant space worm all day, complaining about historical inaccuracy is a bit silly. Regardless of what ancient Egyptians actually looked like, any attempt at historical realism would just be jarring and out-of-place here.

Gerard Butler and Chadwick Boseman hamming it up as the evil Set and smarmy Thoth are fun, as is Geoffrey Rush as Ra. Shame that the rest of the cast is as dull and forgettable as they are. The CGI quality is in the halfway-point between “good” and “Syfy movie-tier”. It’s not exactly convincing, but it’s pretty and colorful enough that you don’t need too much suspension of disbelief. Tonally and stylistically, the movie harkens back to those cheesy low-budget fantasy films from the 80’s (if not in budget and star-power). I particularly love how the human girl love interest is portrayed as an innocent girl-next-door-y type, but her massive, barely-contained rack is prominent in almost every frame she’s on screen.

The only major detrimental flaw (and it’s kind of a big one) is that “Gods of Egypt” feels about 20-30 minutes too long. It just doesn’t have the narrative strength or filmmaking energy to sustain its’ running time. If it was edited down (particularly the parts with the young, discount-Orlando Bloom main human character), it’d be a reasonably fun movie. Still, I appreciated “Gods of Egypt” for its goofily-sincere throwback spirit, and nothing about it was painful to watch. Not god-like, but not god-awful either.

80. High-Rise – It’s difficult for me to review a film like “High-Rise”, because while there’s a great deal I admire about the film, the overall experience just felt hollow and repetitive to me. It’s about a young doctor who moves into a fancy 1970’s London high-rise, a self-sustained building with many luxuries intended to provide equal quality of housing to all its inhabitants, where mounting tensions between tensions between the upper and lower floors eventually give way to literal class warfare (subtle). While the first half of the movie is engaging, as the doctor maneuvers through all the social groups and meets a lot of the residents, the second half where the actual fighting starts lost me pretty quickly. None of the characters behave like normal human beings, which makes it hard to be invested in their conflict. While there’s some maintenance issues and disrespect in the building, it’s not clear why they all descend into savagery so quickly. I guess it’s something we’re just supposed to accept (human nature, man), but I feel like a more prolonged slide into chaos would have helped the movie, especially since the second half is just repetitive “one side does bad shit to the other, while the doctor tries to stay out of it” nonsense.

While I don’t buy any of the characters, the cast is strong and they play these caricatures with great conviction. I actually love the aesthetics of the movie; the set design, lighting, camerawork, etc. all being very striking and creative. Director Ben Wheatley’s talent here is evident, even if I stopped caring about the material after a while. I get that this movie is intended to be satire, so a lot of my complaints about the movie could be something that someone else would enjoy because it was all intentional, man. Maybe you’ll get more out of it than I did, but to me it was just a pretty and well-acted slog.

79. Lion

White saviors

Inspirational piano-heavy music the occasionally remembers to throw in some foreign flavor

A cute kid

A solid performance from a minority actor (Dev Patel)

A former Oscar winner who cries a bunch (Nicole Kidman)

A well-intentioned but kind of condescending depiction of another culture

Over-reliance on fish-out-of-water humor

Really obvious plot beats and recurring elements

An attempt to depict “realism” in poverty but watering it down for a PG-13 rating,

A happy/emotional ending

“Based on a true story”

Ending text that not only says what happened to the real-life figures with photos and video, but also includes a statistic about missing children in India and how this film is helping to fix the problem while a pop song by Sia plays.

I know this was based on a true story, but it’s like the fucking Academy themselves made this movie.

78. Independence Day: Resurgence – Roland Emmerich is like a more boring Michael Bay. Many of his films are little more than special effects showcases, dragged down by stock characters and awful writing. Oftentimes, the stupidity on display in a Roland Emmerich movie goes past the point of fun and becomes downright insulting to the audience. Charitably put, the man’s kind of a hack., but even a broken hack is right twice a career (sort of). The first time was 1996’s “Independence Day”, one of the most famous movies of the 90’s and a fun piece of cheese in its own right. The second time was 2016’s long-awaited (by nobody) “Independence Day: Resurgence”*. I don’t wish to imply that “Revengeance” is high-art or anything, but if you’re in the right frame of mind, it’s a simple and comfortably enjoyable flick.

A big part of that is that it’s never insultingly stupid. It’s not smart or anything, but it goes about its business without giving anyone a headache. The characters aren’t deep, but they’re likable enough for the audience to enjoy following them and for possibly the first time in Emmerich’s career, they’re not irritating. “Revolutions” is sincere in its goal to entertain, and displays enough self-awareness to get the audience to relax, like when Jeff Goldblum cheekily comments “They like to get the landmarks” during the film’s main destruction sequence. There’s also some hilariously goofy dialogue like “The ship will touch down over the Atlantic.” --> “Which part?” --> “ALL of it.” There’s a little bit of Chinese pandering (including that juice-box filled with milk or some shit that I keep seeing in these movies), but not enough to annoy, and weirdly it suits the theme of different nationalities banding together.

The cast is fine, but really nothing special. Goldblum is enjoyable because he seems constantly aware of the kind of schlock he’s in, but “Regurgitation” is sorely missing Will Smith, who is more charismatic than all the new cast members combined. When Bill Pullman is giving the best performance, your film isn’t going to win any acting awards. One other thing that I personally really missed was David Arnold, whose score for the 1996 film is one of my favorite film scores of that decade, and the only time the soundtrack for this one comes alive is when it occasionally reprises his majestic themes.

In summary, if you’re looking for something original or high-brow, look elsewhere, but if you just want to kill a few hours and seeing a diverse** group of attractive, multinational humans band together to fight aliens warms your heart a little bit in these cynical times, then “Independence Day: Redemption” will scratch that particular itch.

* I also admit to enjoying “White House Down”

**by diverse I mean black, white, Chinese, and Jeff Goldblum.

77. X-Men: Apocalypse - There's a bit in "X-Men: Apocalypse" where the younger characters go see "Return of the Jedi" and one of them comments on how the third movie of the trilogy is always the worst.

How prophetic that line turned out to be.

Not that X-Men: Apocalypse is a bad movie, but it’s definitely closer to Brett Ratner’s “X-Men: The Last Stand” than it is to Bryan Singer’s previously strong entries in the franchise. This is definitely one of those “you take the good with the bad” situations. This is a really inconsistent (tonally and otherwise) movie, so instead of writing a repetitive “this is good, but this isn’t” review, I’ll just list off the positives and negatives and leave it up to you to decide if it’s worth watching or not. This will include some spoilers, but you’re not missing much and the canon in these movies is a complete mess anyway. I’ll say that I was entertained, sometimes genuinely and sometimes ironically, for most of the film, so take that how you will.

The Good:

Evan Peters’ Quicksilver, who steals the second X-Men movie in a row

The Quicksilver mansion scene

Nice visuals

Good soundtrack

The early scenes in Poland

The Wolverine cameo

The Bad:

Nightcrawler being wasted despite being one of the best parts of Singer’s “X2”

Jennifer Lawrence is clearly phoning it in

The film does nothing fun with the 1980s setting

Oscar Isaac is wasted on a generic “I’m going to destroy the world and only the strong shall remain” villain.

Storm joins Apocalypse’s gang for like no reason, then switches sides pretty abruptly during the climax

Olivia Munn’s Psylocke has like, one or two lines the whole movie

For the third movie in a row, Magneto becomes the bad guy because he’s Magneto

For the third movie in a row, Professor X gives Magneto the “You don’t have to do this, there is still good in you” speech.

I know it’s the key theme of the franchise, but to hear these characters complain about mutant rights and discrimination is getting tiring after so many movies

It’s two-and-a-half hours long

The Funny:

Nightcrawler’s makeup

Everyone in the movie keeps saying how important Mystique is when this is the most useless and unnecessary her character has ever been.

After killing like, millions of people during the climax, they just let Magneto go, with Professor X telling him “I’ll see you around, old friend”

The characters are 20 years older than they were in “X-Men: First Class”, but all still look like they’re in their 20s or early 30’s.

That scene where Professor X beats up Apocalypse in his mind

Coca-Cola product placement

Magneto destroying Auschwitz

76. The Finest Hours – “The Finest Hours” is a period disaster/rescue drama about a small 1950’s Cape Cod Coast Guard team’s attempts to rescue the crew of an oil tanker after their ship gets Titanic’d by a major storm, and it’s as old-fashioned a movie as it gets, even to a fault. It’s a refreshingly straightforward film. I liked the community/teamwork-focused buildup, as we get to know Chris Pine’s Coast Guardsman, his love interest, and the crew of the ship before the disaster hits. I liked the scenes on the water the most, the experience of them struggling to clear the huge waves during the heavy weather is actually pretty harrowing. I liked the warm tone and the understated heroism.

There’s really not much to this film. I feel like it’s a bit too safe and predictable and not as white-knuckle exciting as I’d hoped. I wasn’t a fan of how the movie kept cutting back to the generic worries of the people on the shore, and the only things in this film thicker than the nostalgia ah the faahkin New England ahhccents. Still, I enjoyed it. It’s not a first-rate vessel, but it stays afloat.

75. Warcraft – I’ll start this by saying that I’m not a Warcraft fan and have never played any of the games. With that out of the way…

"Warcraft" is the nerdiest movie I think I've ever seen. It was so geeky, I felt like watching and enjoying it gave me my virginity back. This movie was made for Warcraft fans and literally nobody else (maybe the Chinese, but they're an easy-to-please bunch).

I actually really admire that. In an age where almost all blockbusters are watered-down, homogenized garbage made by people who seek maximum profit by catering to the largest possible demographic, seeing Universal Pictures take such a risk and sinking $160 million (plus marketing) into a film so niche and nerdy warms my heart. A movie that tries to please everybody pleases nobody in particular, and I'm happy for the Warcraft nerds for having their own cinematic moment.

The movie itself is kind of a mess, however. Even putting aside the stuff you probably need to be a WC fan to understand, the pacing is wonky, the script is weak, most of the human cast is bland, the editing sucks, and it ends very anticlimactically. While Duncan Jones (who is the main reason I saw this movie) pulls off some impressive visuals and great moments, the movie for the most part lacks the epic feel you’d expect in a big-budget fantasy movie. I was able to follow the basic story, but I was definitely lost at times, and remembered like, 3 or 4 of the characters’ names by the time the movie ended.

“Warcraft” certainly has its positives, however. While most of the human cast is underwritten or boring, Travis Fimmel and Ben Foster are both quite good in their roles, easily standing out from their cardboard cut-out castmates. The orcs won the lottery on their actors, all of whom play the orcs with such conviction that they feel more believable than most of their human counterparts. Even the writing was better during the orc scenes, weirdly. Speaking of believable, the special effects on display are fantastic. Between the amazing-looking orcs, the magic effects and the scenery, the CG artists have definitely earned their paychecks on this one. The battle scenes were fun, and (THANK GOD) shot clearly without using shaky-cam or fast editing, those two errant turds on the delicious pie of most action films. It’s also nice to see a movie that seems like it was created out of love and affection by people who actually care for the franchise, and who don’t feel the need to make it ironic or quippy.

While I mentioned that the writing is weak (most characters are frustratingly undeveloped and there are lots of important-sounding proper nouns that left me scratching my head), I see plenty of room for improvement, and with more refinement and focus, I can see a great sequel arising from this. I genuinely hope this franchise continues, because even though it’s not my thing and certainly not without its weaknesses, I enjoyed it for the most part and it feels like such a refreshing medicine to the disease of bland, corporate modern blockbusters that I don’t mind the odd taste or that the spoon is made from frozen fanboy wank.

74. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows – I admit to being one of the few people that liked the Michael Bay-produced 2014 TMNT reboot, so I was also one of the few people looking forward to this year’s generically-subtitled sequel. I’m happy to say that as incremental as it may be, OOTS is a definite improvement. It feels less like the factory-assembled reboot typical of Hollywood attempts to cash in on nostalgic properties, and feels more in line with the original cartoon series. No longer is charisma-vacuum Megan Fox the main character; she is relegated to supporting duties, and the turtles (still enthusiastically played by their mo-cap actors) take center stage. This movie does the typical sequel thing where it includes more villains than the first, but all of them (besides Shredder, who is little more than a cameo) are surprisingly entertaining and never outstay their welcome. Tyler Perry is delightful as a mad scientist, as are the two guys who play man-beasts Bebop and Rocksteady. “Arrow” star Stephen Amell is clearly having a blast as vigilante Casey Jones. The action sequences are creative and fun to watch.

There’s plenty of product placement, but the Turtles have always been whores designed to sell merchandise, so it doesn’t feel out of place. I miss Brian Tyler’s bombastic music from the first film, the score here by Steve Jablonsky being much more generic and forgettable. The few attempts at character development are trite and unnecessary. The writing is still kinda crappy, and there’s a bit too much juvenile humor. I suppose my biggest complaint is that while the filmmaking is competent, it really lacks the sort of energy and inspiration to take it to the next level. Almost all the elements for a genuinely good Turtles movie are here; it just needs someone to put it all together into something that’s more than the sum of its parts, and not the dude who directed “Earth to Echo” (I’d heard of it either).

73. Zootopia – Nice animation, great attention to detail and some good visual gags (the population-counter on the rabbit farm, the wolf cop going undercover, etc.). Highlight of the film was the opening school-play scene. Nice message for the kids about how prejudices can lead even the most well-intentioned of people astray. Plot goes through the familiar beats of a Disney film, except for a pretty retarded third-act heel turn that I won’t spoil, but it would make more sense and have more story impact if the character didn’t feel so minor, and if it wasn’t so last-minute in the movie. “Frozen” was dull as shit, but at least the scene where HANS BETRAYS ANNA (spoiler warning) was pretty hilarious because of how well-timed and out of nowhere it was. The “grown-up” references (Godfather, Breaking Bad, etc.) feel pretty forced, mainly due to them just being references and not actual jokes. Overall, it’s a decent, well-made, and occasionally funny film (“I mean, I am just a dumb bunny, but we are good at multiplying”), but the overly-formulaic and predictable plot signifies that Disney’s lack of creative ambition is still there. Also, the sloth scene might have been funny if I hadn’t already seen it in the trailer. It’s definitely not one of those scenes that’s funny more than once.

Recommended for kids, furries, and those who love animal puns.

72. Hush – A deaf-mute writer is terrorized in her home by a psychopath intent on killing her. A nice premise with a refreshing twist on the tired home invasion genre, and the movie is a brisk 81 minutes. However, I feel like it should have been shorter, and it was only so long because the villain was so unbelievably stupid. At multiple points he could have entered her home and killed her pretty easily, but the plot dictates that she needs to think of ways to survive and outsmart him, so he’s just written as a crazy and evil idiot who wants to toy with his prey. I imagine most people would be fine with it, but his behavior became more annoying than scary after a while.

Making the film watchable is the solid directing and cinematography, along with writer/star Kate Siegel who makes for a very sympathetic and likable protagonist. We both wince and feel for her character when she gets hurt, as she sobs quietly but can’t audibly cry. Her performance is so convincing that I was genuinely surprised to find out that she’s not actually deaf in real life. The movie is decent and worth watching if you like horror-thrillers, and it shows than Blumhouse can still produce the occasional, not-garbage horror film.

71. War Dogs - I wasn’t a fan of the “Hangover” trilogy, even if the third entry was an admirably bold middle-finger to all of its established fans, but I saw talent in Todd Phillips’ direction which made me somewhat look forward to his next endeavor. Based on a true story, Miles Teller and Jonah Hill play two 20-something Miami dudes who get into the world of gun-running and happen upon a major but shady deal with the U.S. government. Basically, “Lord of War” for the new generation. However, where “Lord of War” was, despite its’ wry sense of humor, a pretty dramatic and searing look at the arms trade and the U.S. government’s involvement with it. “War Dogs”, meanwhile, feels more like a lightweight “Wolf of Wall Street”-esque rise-and-fall story of two friends and businessmen that, despite the constant references to the Bush administration, feels like only a passing criticism of the government. The key problem with the movie is how been-there-done-that it is. Even if you know nothing about the real-world story that inspired it, all the dramatic beats and character progressions are thoroughly predictable, and watching it I felt like I’ve seen this movie a hundred times already. It even opens with a variation of that freeze-frame “You’re probably wondering how I got in this situation” cliché. It’s not bad. It’s solid in pretty much every aspect. The directing by Phillips (I like a visual gag where a character sees approaching Iraqi insurgents in his truck’s side mirror, then the camera pans down to “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”), the writing, the acting (with a noteworthy turn by Jonah Hill). It’s all fine. But the movie’s crippling lack of ambition means that by the end of the year, it’ll probably be completely forgotten about. I’m writing this review two days after having seen it and I’m genuinely having trouble remembering things about it. To put it in a hack-y movie critic kind of way; “War Dogs” is a gun that doesn’t malfunction, but never hits the bulls-eye either.

70. Jason Bourne – If the Bourne films popularized the “gritty espionage thriller” genre, 2016’s “Jason Bourne” feels like a generic knockoff made while the trend was hot, except it’s several years later and no one really cares. Still, I was looking forward to the film, because there are so few good action movies coming out these days and Paul Greengrass is at least a pretty strong director. I will always slightly resent Greengrass for popularizing the shaky-cam, fast-editing style of action filmmaking, but I admit he does it better than pretty much everyone, and it actually suits Bourne’s gritty, improvisational nature. There’s an early chase set during a riot in Athens and a climactic chase in Las Vegas that feel as urgent and intense as any action scenes I’ve seen in a while. Still, you wish the guy would invest in a tripod or something. It’s nice that Greengrass doesn’t discriminate, but exclusively hiring camera operators with Parkinson’s does make the end product a bit hard to follow, visually.

The plot is some hokum about the CIA trying to knock off a billionaire social media tech guru because he won’t let them use his product to spy on everyone, and somehow Jason Bourne is brought out of exile/retirement because of EVEN MORE buried secrets about his past. It’s pretty generic stuff that tries to be timely but comes across as trying too hard. Damon’s a compelling lead, and he’s given a decent villainous counterpart in Vincent Cassel, but it’s hard to be involved in the material. I was also disappointed by the lack of character development for Julia Stiles’ returning Nicky Parsons. Some insight into why she came out of hiding to give Bourne information would have been nice. The rest of the cast is unmemorable; Tommy Lee Jones in particular looks like he’s counting down the seconds until he stops shooting and can cash in his check.

You can tell that this is a tacked-on cash-grab sequel. They couldn’t even bother thinking of a proper Bourne title (The Bourne Resurgence, maybe?), and while Damon and Greengrass are definitely not half-assing it, you can tell their hearts aren’t really in this. Their workmanlike approach and their undeniable talent, however, does mean that Jason Bourne is an enjoyable thriller, and you’ll at least get a great pair of action scenes out of it. Still, what the hell were they thinking, making a Bourne film without Jeremy Renner?

69. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - There is perhaps no bigger red flag to me for a major blockbuster movie than hearing about “extensive reshoots”. Putting aside the lessons we’ve learned from “Fantastic 4” and “Suicide Squad”, the main problem with these kinds of reshoots is that it speaks to the studio not having enough confidence in the director’s vision, and more in the opinions of test audiences. I know that reshoots are commonplace in the film industry, but when they announced that “Rogue One” would have several weeks of reshoots that weren’t even headed by director Gareth Edwards, my heart sank a bit.

Now, I don’t mean to compare this to the previously mentioned comic-book dumpster fires, but the fact that “Rogue One” is just “kinda good” makes it pretty disappointing for me. Before some of you nerds ask; no, I didn’t watch this film with the sole purpose of criticizing it and ruining the Star Wars circlejerk. I was really looking forward to it when I heard that Gareth Edwards would direct, because his recent “Godzilla” reboot was fucking awesome and easily one of the best blockbusters of recent years, and I had hoped that “Rogue One” would mark an effort in taking this unkillable franchise to bold, new directions. It’s not like doing so would even be considered risky; “Star Wars” fans would literally pay money to eat dogshit if they were told it’d be canon or if the actor who played Wedge Antilles told them to do it.

But there’s the problem. Despite some differences in approach to the main saga, “Rogue One” is as safe as they come. Sure, there’s no opening crawl and the visuals are grittier than usual, but in terms of dialogue, storytelling, style of music, etc., it’s still very much a Star Wars movie. I do like how the movie takes itself fairly seriously and is bereft of the typical cringe-worthy Disneyquips©, but it kind of lacks the passion and inspiration that made so many people fall in love with the original trilogy.

Michael Giacchino’s score does the job, but isn’t all that memorable. He happily mimics John Williams’ style, but doesn’t display the sense of flair or majesty that made Williams’ music for this series so famous. It’s a shame we’ll never get to hear original composer Alexandre Desplat’s work for this film (he couldn’t do the score due to rescheduling around the reshoots).

The cast is a major case of “talented actors let down by a weak script and thin characters”. Try doing the Plinkett thing and describe the characters’ personalities, without talking about their role in the plot or their motivations, and ask yourself if any of them sound interesting. The main character Jyn Erso is especially disappointing, since what initially seems like a personal quest to find her father turns into her just selflessly becoming a noble rebel hero. There’s kind of an arc, sure, but it’s seriously missing any real drama to make the arc meaningful. This is especially bad during the slow and plodding first two acts of the film, which are rather unengaging and even boring at times.

The only somewhat amusing characters are the droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), the blind kung-fu former Jedi (Donnie Yen), and the Death Star director (Ben Mendelsohn). The droid is pretty much the only source of humor in the film, and he feels welcome because he doesn’t feel over-the-top (he’s a kind of cross between C3PO and HK-47). Donnie Yen is an insanely charismatic actor, and he makes his character interesting enough that he can overcome the writing. Ben Mendelsohn makes for an entertaining and slimy villain, but he’s let down by the script and the constraints of the canon more than anyone. Mendelsohn’s naturally villainous performance is wasted due to his character’s frequent emasculation at the hands of old franchise baddies Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader.

And therein lies the crux of the matter, both that of the film and of Disney; they focus less on building the future or telling new, memorable stories in lieu of milking the past for all it’s worth. This is best exemplified by Disney’s decision to reintroduce a pair of ANH characters using their creepy, uncanny-valley CGI technology and body doubles. They did this in a few Marvel movies to have actors play younger versions of themselves, but here they use it to bring a dead actor (Peter Cushing as Tarkin) back to life, and it’s quite morbid and uncomfortable when you think about it. They literally bought a dead man’s likeness from his estate to milk it for nostalgia bucks. Is that where we are as a society where we’re totally cool with something like this? Wouldn’t it be much more natural (and cheaper) to just recast the old characters? You know, with human beings and whatnot?

Don’t get me wrong. As an action-space-fantasy movie, “Rogue One” works well enough. I mentioned previously that the first two acts are meh, despite some good moments (like the Death Star’s demonstration on a desert city, and the whole opening scene). Most of the movie was characters traveling from one colorless location to the next, getting into a scuffle with the Empire, then escaping. It’s in the third act where the movie really kicks into gear. The stakes are raised, things feel more urgent, and the bland locations are swapped for a beautiful tropical beach setting with an Empire base on it. It’s basically one large action sequence, but it works. Edwards again uses his excellent sense of scale and visual prowess to make the battle feel epic and exciting. As someone who isn’t a big Star Wars fan, it’s easily the best 30-40 minutes in any of the movies for me.

However, while “Rogue One” gives an admirable effort in being its own thing, it can’t help but keep calling back to the original trilogy just to please its established fanbase. I don’t blame all of the film’s flaws on the reshoots. There’s no obvious difference between original and new footage like a crappy wig or awful, forced humor. And who knows, maybe the reshoots actually made the film better. But at the end, “Rogue One” feels like it doesn’t want to be a Star Wars movie but is forced to be one (pun intended) by its strict parents. So often the characters go on about “hope”, as if they are seeking HOPE of a NEW variety. It may be like poetry (it rhymes), but after a point it becomes less poetry and more beating you over the head with a rhyming dictionary. For future installments, let’s cross our fingers for a little less “hope” and a little more “new”.

68. Passengers – Betrays Chris Pratt’s best movie performance to date, an excellent first act, and its own interesting (and pretty disturbing) premise by watering it down with schmaltzy Hollywood romance, unnecessary action, and a cancer-inducing end-credits Imagine Dragons song. I could write an entire essay on why the movie’s specific approach to its story is deeply uncomfortable. I’m also pretty much over Jennifer Lawrence at this point.

67. Three – Intriguing and unique chamber piece, but its comical elements and over-the-top melodrama feel out of place, and the final shootout feels like style just for style’s sake, which makes it oddly boring. Watchable, but a massive step down for Johnnie To after his excellent “Drug War”.

66. Captain Fantastic – Soulful performance from Viggo Mortensen and the occasional touching and insightful moment help buoy this portrayal of family and unconventional parenting whose biggest flaw is having a script and viewpoint that’s too smug and proud of itself for its own good, which makes most of the emotional moments feel cheap and unearned. Wes Anderson could have made a great movie out of this.

65. The Edge of Seventeen – Overcomes (just barely) the unlikability of its main character, the annoying way characters always describe what they’re going through, and its own sheer predictability with good performances, the occasional funny line and a fairly honest and empathetic look at growing up. I’d respect it more if it had the balls to have an unhappy ending. Woody Harrelson gives probably my favorite portrayal of a teacher in a movie.

64. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice – Oh, boy, here we go. For the record, this review is of the extended cut of the film.

I firmly believe that you can make or break a movie in editing. No matter how good the writing, acting, directing, and cinematography are, if a film is poorly edited, it becomes confusing at best, and a complete chore to watch at worst. Such was the case with the theatrical cut of the highly-anticipated (not by me, of course) “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice”, a film that despite being two-and-a-half hours long, felt like a rushed and confusing mess. I’m not saying that the extended cut is some sort of masterpiece, but this 3-hour version is what Zack Snyder intended the finished product to be before Warner Bros. got their stupid fucking fingers on it. Characters are given more scenes to be fleshed out, subplots are better developed, and the pacing is significantly improved, amounting to a much more coherent and downright better film. If you saw the theatrical version and are really on the fence about the film, I recommend watching the extended cut.

The movie itself is still fundamentally flawed in some aspects. It’s still a film constrained by the pressure to set up an entire cinematic universe, which makes the story itself suffer. It probably should have been solely about the personal grudge between Batman and Superman and the consequences it takes on both of them, and them eventually teaming up together when they realize they’re not so different and both want the same thing. The actual movie tries to do that, have Lex Luthor try to destroy both of them, introduce Wonder Woman, set up Wonder Woman’s origin story, set-up three other Justice League members’ origin stories, set up the Justice League movie itself, have an investigative Lois Lane subplot, hint at a future bad guy, and create a giant Frankenstein monster for the third act, among other things. The movie does keep most of these plates spinning, but some of them do fall. It’s an ambitious undertaking, but we’re still left with expensive broken china.

The writing is pretty hackneyed, too. If you can explain Lex Luthor’s motivation for hating Superman to me without citing a comic book or saying “it’s just what he does”, please do. They hint at some biblical reason for it (the Christ allegories and symbolism are even less subtle here as they were in “Man of Steel”, to give you an idea), but it came across as Lex hating him for no particular reason and trying to quote scripture to justify it. There are like three extended dream sequences in the movie, which feels like two too many. And then there’s that awful flow-breaking scene where they set-up The Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman. I’m reminded of an anecdote where during the making of “Man of Steel”, Zack Snyder wanted to include an after-credits scene but producer Christopher Nolan opposed, telling him “A real movie wouldn’t do that.” This story is probably bullshit, but I think it’s funny that Snyder made an after-credits scene and just crowbarred it into the middle of the movie.

“Batman v. Superman” attempts (and actually succeeds for a while) to really create a sense of consequence in a comic book movie, with the whole world, particularly Batman, being concerned about Superman’s presence on Earth after the destruction caused in “Man of Steel”. But it’s all kind of thrown out the window when that conflict is immediately dropped after the “MARTHA” scene so they could team up to fight the aforementioned Frankenstein monster. The “MARTHA” scene has become kind of infamous, but I was actually fine with it (even if it could have been better written) until Batman says “Don’t worry. Martha’s not dying tonight”, which got a good howl out of me. It was at the very least an interesting movie until it became the typical third-act destruction fest that has characterized so many superhero flicks, with even a few tonally jarring quips thrown in for good measure. The actual fight between Batman and Superman only lasts for like 5 minutes, despite so much buildup. While fun, it feels really schlocky, especially when Batman rips a sink out of a bathroom wall and starts beating Superman over the head with it. Why they started fighting in the first place instead of talking it out like Superman originally intended is beyond me, as well. Zack Snyder’s penchant for outstanding visuals is never in question (he does handheld camerawork better than pretty much anyone) but his grasp on storytelling has always been a bit iffy, even if this is arguably his best work.

If you’re a comic book fan and weren’t a fan of the characterization in this film, the extended cut won’t change your mind on that. Superman is still kind of a dick, Lex Luthor is still a Jolly Rancher-sucking autist, and Batman still kills people. It (mostly) makes sense in the context in the film, and I personally didn’t care too much, but I know some comic book fans who won’t forgive it. Last but not least, I want to mention what is probably the most annoying product placement I’ve seen in a movie this year. It’s not as gratuitous as a TMNT or Transformers flick, but at least those films didn’t take themselves seriously. There is nothing that can ruin a good, serious scene like a really out-of-place product placement. I was enjoying the scene with Clark Kent and Lois Lane in the bathtub until the camera turned to the bottle of Olay and stayed there for like a solid 2 seconds. The scene I was most looking forward to in the movie (the “Man of Steel” destruction of Metropolis as seen through Bruce Wayne’s eyes, which was really well done) was really hurt by the fact that right before the movie started they showed an ad for the Jeep used in the scene, using footage from the movie. There’s also a scene where Lex Luthor tries to force-feed Holly Hunter a Jolly Rancher. I understand that the movie’s titanic budget has to come from somewhere, but it’s shit like this that really pulls me out of the movie.

The cast is strong, particularly Jeremy Irons’ Alfred and Ben Affleck, who exceeds all expectations as Batman, even if he looks a bit silly in the suit. If nothing else, I’m really looking forward to his solo Batfleck film. Gal Gadot is nothing special, but at least she isn’t terrible. Henry Cavill is solid and likable even when the script lets him down, as is Amy Adams (not to politicize things, but I feel like this movie is getting no credit whatsoever for actually having a female love-interest who is like ten years older than her male counterpart, as opposed to the typical older-male-younger-female one). I like how they try to make Laurence Fishburne’s newspaper editor like a reverse J. Jonah Jameson from Spider-Man, constantly telling Clark Kent to report on some local sports team and admonishing him for writing about a vigilante dressed up as a bat beating the shit out of criminals and branding them.

I could go on, but at least BvS feels like an actual movie, instead of the really long trailer that was “Man of Steel”. Its (many) flaws aside, Zack Snyder is to be commended for using such a massive budget to at least try and do something different and ambitious than typical superhero films, and the fact that he succeeds as much as he does despite so many expectations and so much pressure is to be lauded. His cast is good, his action scenes are brutal and weighty (I loved that “Arkham” style warehouse fight between Batman and a group of armed thugs), his heart is in the right place, and he really, honestly dares to be different. If he had a better script and a not-terrible studio to back him up, “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” would be appreciated for what it is, and not the kind of movie that inspires actual news articles about RottenTomatoes.

63. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk – Uneven but occasionally powerful and refreshingly biting look at America’s oft-hypocritical worship of its soldiers and what battle can really do to their psyche, with lead actor and newcomer Joe Alwyn deftly carrying the movie on his shoulders. Let down by a weak script and most of the supporting characters being one-dimensional caricatures, however intentional it may be. The weirdest cast ever assembled for a drama (Garrett Hedlund, Chris Tucker, Steve Martin, Kristen Stewart, and Vin Diesel) works surprisingly well, except for the sadly out-of-place Martin. Didn’t get to see it in the original 4K, 120fps format, but at least I don’t get a headache out of it.

62. Hidden Figures – Typical inspirational historical drama. Sugary and as clichéd as it gets, but solid enough that it works. Elevated by strong performances from the three leading women, made amusing by how every other line spoken by any of them is an Obama-esque crowd-pleasing “Mmhmm” moment, and almost ruined by the presence of Bazinga as a racist, sexist strawman who is just there to be continually outsmarted and embarrassed by the smart, black lady. Probably going to become a staple in high school math/physics classes with lazy teachers. Thumbs up for the Oscar-bait title.

61. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi – I let out a good chortle when I heard that there would be a movie about the 2012 Benghazi attack starring Jim from “The Office” and directed by none other than Michael Bay, a man whose approach to maturity and good taste generally amounts to a passing laugh and cocaine-sneeze. It was to my pleasant surprise (and admitted slight disappointment) that “13 Hours” turned out to be not only a solid military thriller but also Bay’s most restrained and mature movie. Don’t get me wrong; there’s still plenty of military hardware porn, explosions, and tastefully lit shots of a shirtless John Krasinski (hnnng). However, it also doesn’t include the obnoxious humor and out-of-place product placement that characterize most of his films (although there is a really unnecessary scene in a McDonald’s drive-through), and it actually takes itself fairly seriously, which is surprising coming from the guy who directed a film about two Miami cops who single-handedly invade Cuba.

It presents an account of what happened that night at the U.S. embassy and nearby CIA station as seen through the perspective of the security contractors stationed there, and it avoids politicizing the matter. There’s an annoying CIA chief strawman who refuses to let the contractors go in early to rescue the ambassador, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. The rest is a tense military action film, along with the expected jingoistic hero worship that these types of films have to include by law or something, though thankfully it’s not as bad here. Bay spends a decent amount of time setting up the location, the characters and the situation, before tits go inevitably up. The characters are fairly thin, their non-action scenes amounting to the usual dick-swinging soldier banter and some phone calls to their wholesome, attractive families back home, but the actors are good and convincing enough to make you care about them.

The action scenes are the reasons to see this, characterized by strong sound design and the aforementioned hardware porn that I admittedly enjoy, as well as some great shots, like the slo-motion one of a soldier surrounded by sparks. I also liked the atmosphere of the film, as the contractors slowly move through the ghostly streets of Benghazi, one of them remarking “It’s like we’re in a horror movie”, as some residents nearby are casually watching a soccer match while ignoring the gunfights outside their homes, as if it’s just another weekday evening.

The writing is pretty weak. It gets the needed information across, but the characterization is thin, the dialogue ranges from corny to boring, and there really isn’t enough plot to make this movie as long as it is.

Nontheless, it’s a solid action-thriller. I’ve defended Michael Bay for a long time now (mainly because he made “The Rock”, and I don’t see any other fucking director that made “The Rock”), but between this and 2013’s “Pain & Gain” he shows how much better he can be with smaller budgets and when not constrained by a plot involving giant robots punching each other and making racial wisecracks.

60. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping – Imagine “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”, but not as good, and you get a good idea of what “Popstar” is like. The humor was pretty hit-or-miss and definitely favored quantity over quality when it came to the jokes, as can be expected from a movie made by SNL alumni, but it kept me entertained and made me laugh enough to warrant a recommendation. Funniest bits were the TMZ parodies, Justin Timberlake, and the “Equal Rights” music video.

59. Midnight Special – I like Jeff Nichols as a filmmaker. It’s partly because Michael Shannon is in all of his films, and I’ll watch anything that man does at this point, but Nichols has shown himself to be a nuanced and compelling storyteller with an excellent command of both atmosphere and tone. It’s this skilled storytelling and another strong performance from Shannon that make Midnight Special worth watching, even if it’s all in service of a story that becomes pretty dumb by the time we find out what’s going on.

The basic plot is that of a father who runs away from a religious compound with his son and is soon hunted by a number of groups because of some mysterious power that his son possesses. The opening scene where they and a helping friend of the father hurriedly leave a motel room and drive away into the night is excellent and expertly sets up a low-key but involving sci-fi thriller tone. Unfortunately, the more the movie goes on, the more we find out what the son’s powers are and what his “purpose” is, and without spoiling anything, it lost me pretty quickly after the late-second act revelation. The strong cast led by Shannon and Nichols’ direction kept the movie compelling enough to get me to the finish line, but this is definitely a case of a screenplay being too ambitious for its own good.

58. Green Room – Punk rockers vs. neo-Nazis is a premise more fitting of a sillier movie, in my opinion. Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier (who made 2014’s underrated gem “Blue Ruin”) probably knew this, and subverts it by making “Green Room” as grim and unpleasant as he possibly could. Going off of a theme from “Blue Ruin”, the deaths in this movie are often bloody, realistically brutal, and purposely sudden and anticlimactic, simultaneously being a violent movie but also anti-violence. Saulnier’s technical aptitude and the talents of the cast are never in question, and the movie itself is quite gripping and well-paced. I don’t think “Green Room” is as good or thematically rich as “Blue Ruin”, and the ending is a bit of a letdown, but it’s still a well-made and clever genre flick, and if you enjoy feeling like shit and averting your eyes from the screen then it’s the movie for you.

57. Eye in the Sky – A government joint-operation to kill some high-ranking terrorists in Kenya via a drone strike is halted when a little local girl enters the kill-radius. The story is told from the perspective of a ground recon team trying to get her out, the drone pilots, and the military brass and government officials who argue about whether the strike is justified and should be carried out. It has a good setup and a pretty powerful climax, but drags quite a bit in the middle portion where those in charge of the operation keep referring up to their superiors to figure out if they can/should/will fire the missile. The cast, in particular the late, great Alan Rickman as a weary general, are good enough to get you through the duller bits of the movie, and it’s really nice to see Barkhad Abdi in a movie again. While it could have trimmed some of its excess fat, “Eye in the Sky” is a tense, compelling thriller, and a much more mature and responsible examination of the consequences of drone warfare than “London Has Fallen”, albeit much less entertaining.

56. Sully – You’ve got to give Clint Eastwood credit. For a guy in his mid 80’s, he sure is prolific these days, regularly cranking out solid movies every year or two. In retelling the events of the “Miracle on the Hudson” passenger plane water landing from a years beack “Sully” continues that tradition by being good. Not great, but good. Tom Hanks makes for a fine lead, Aaron Eckhart is decent as Hanks’ co-pilot and friend (albeit constantly overshadowed by his own glorious mustache), just about everything else is meh. The highlight of the movie is the water landing itself, shown 3 times at different points from the perspectives of an air traffic controller, the passengers, and finally the cockpit. These scenes are intense and pretty harrowing, dodgy CGI aside. The rest of the movie is either the lead-up to the flight, or the aftermath where Captain Sully deals with the mental trauma from the incident and contends with a federal investigative committee that easily wins the award for “Most Obvious Strawmen of the Year”. Whatever. The film is well-made and compelling enough. As I said before, it’s good. It’s the definition of a 7/10 movie. If you’re old, like the audience during my theater showing was, you’ll probably love it. Everyone else will probably just like it. If you’re expecting something along the lines of Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” or “Letters from Iwo Jima”, you’ll be disappointed, but if you just want a solid, likable movie, this won’t Sully your expectations…I’m sorry for that one.

55. Christine – An amazing, simultaneously magnetic but also hard-to-watch performance by Rebecca Hall as 1970’s reporter Christine Chubbuck, and a very raw portrayal of depression, but ultimately feels pointless as it says nothing about Chubbuck or her mental state, as if the film is keeping her at a distance when it should be holding us down face-first into what she was truly feeling, making the ordeal feel kind of exploitative, when you think about it. If you know her story, the scene you spend the whole movie anticipating is done excellently, however.

54. Certain Women – MINIMALISM. It’s either your type of thing or it isn’t. “Certain Women” is three loosely-connected stories about women who live in Montana, and it’s as grounded and un-flashy as a film can get without being a home movie. It’s one of those films that’s about normal people and their everyday problems, and makes it all seem profound. To me, it worked well for the most part. I was engaged by the nicely composed cinematography and the good performances. The three stories vary in quality. Laura Dern plays a small-town lawyer who gets caught up in a hostage situation, and this is the most straightforward of the three, but also quite engaging. Michelle Williams plays a mother who wants to build her dream home in the woods but faces ambivalence from everyone in her life, and hers is the weakest story, if only because it feels so short and anticlimactic (even by this movie’s standards). 

The third story is surprisingly the best, with a ranch hand played by newcomer Lily Gladstone who forms a bond with a young law school graduate played by Kristen Stewart, and it’s an affecting and nuanced look at loneliness. Kelly Reichardt’s direction is modest and very low-key, but it’s empathetic and creates a good sense of atmosphere. This movie is also slower than watching paint dry at half-speed, lacks any overt drama and is very light on plot, so it’s one of those movies you’ll either completely love or won’t care for at all. I liked it, because I’m an edgy contrarian, and because I like a movie that gives its characters breathing room and trusts the audience to be smart enough to get their own thematic value out of it, so it’s worth your while if you’re not feeling too sleepy. Plus, there’s an adorable corgi in it, so automatic recommendation from me.

53. Manchester by the Sea – Reading the reviews and seeing all the award nominations, you’d think this mostly plotless exploration of grief is the desperately-needed salvation of cinema. When the credits rolled, however, all that hype ended up giving me was a resounding “Wait, that’s it?”.

The film is about a Boston janitor with a tragic past whose brother dies, and he goes back to his coastal New England hometown to handle his brother’s affairs and break the news to his son. As the janitor, Casey Affleck delivers one of the best portrayals of grief I’ve ever seen. Even before you know his story, his eyes and demeanor subtly hide an ocean of pain and heartbreak, and he pulls it off so naturally you often forget you’re watching an actor. Equally as good (and possibly better) is Michelle Williams, who plays his ex-wife. The filmmaking crime of the century is only putting her in the movie for like 5-10 minutes, where focusing more on her and Affleck’s relationship would have made the movie infinitely better, in my opinion. The guy who plays Affleck’s nephew is alright, given that his and Affleck’s relationship is the core of the movie, but nothing to write home about other than one really good breakdown scene. Everyone else ranges from “passable” to “clearly acting for the first time” to “distracting cameo from Matthew Broderick”.

I don’t wish to imply that the movie fails in any major way. I wasn’t a fan of how often the movie tried to be funny (“funny” in that New England way where characters swear a lot), and there is a glaring overuse of music, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker. I suppose that outside of a small handful of powerful scenes and moments, “Manchester by the Sea” felt like it was missing that emotional gut-punch it aimed for. It peaks halfway through in a flashback where we see what made Affleck’s character the way he is, and the movie only comes close to matching it during the last scene between Affleck and Williams. Don’t get me wrong; I understand the intention of making the film understated, so as to show a realistic depiction of grief, where people kind of just continue going about life and trying to not think about it. However, it goes a bit too far in this direction, to the point where I didn’t care for the mundanity of their lives and wanted some crying and goddamn emotion. This may be an over-simplification of how I feel, but basically, the movie is 10/10 when Affleck and Williams are onscreen together, an 8/10 when it’s just Affleck, and a 5/10 or a 6/10 when it’s any other combination of actors.

52. A Bigger Splash – Seems like it’s going to be a mature meditation on romance and desire until Ralph Fiennes shows up 5 minutes in, steals the entire fucking movie away from both the director and the rest of the cast, rubs his dick on the print, then sets it on fire while giggling to himself and dancing around naked. One of the best performances in a career filled with great performances. Movie goes downhill significantly in the last 30 or so minutes.

51. The Love Witch – Clever satire of gender dynamics as seen through the eyes of a love-addicted femme fatale witch. PERFECTLY nails the old-school Technicolor horror/sexploitation vibe. The art design, camerawork, hair/makeup, and even the way the actors behave is spot-on. Bravo to director Anna Biller and all involved as far as the technical aspects go. Story is at first detrimentally slow and the movie is far too long, but it picks up in the second half. Feels a bit too written, as if the characters occasionally stop being themselves and become mouthpieces for the writer/director.

50. Hardcore Henry – Let it not be said that there is no innovative filmmaking these days. Russian musician and music video director Ilya Naishuller was given a few million dollars to make a balls-to-the-wall action film filmed entirely from the first-person perspective of the main character. The most impressive thing about the stupidly-titled “Hardcore Henry” is how much mileage it manages to get out of its first-person gimmick, and how surprisingly well-made it is. Actual stunts are performed, effects are mostly practical (aside from a few bits of awful CGI), and you always feel like you’re in the body of the main character. The action scenes are fun and inventive, there’s a good deal of humor (I liked the bit with the overlapping subtitles), and Sharlto Copley gives a great performance as several incarnations of the same man with different personalities and looks. The plot is completely shit, and gets a bit too bogged down with exposition at times, but it’s never too intrusive. I suppose the biggest concern there is with this movie is if you can handle the filming technique, because the constant movement of the camera, especially during the action scenes, can give you motion sickness. I got a headache and a bit of nausea while watching it, but it could have been from the McDonald’s I had just before seeing it, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. I think that it works much better on a small screen instead of a movie theater either way, and even while on the verge of throwing up, I had a good deal of fun with “Hardcore Henry”. If you’ve ever used a VR headset while on meth, it should give you a good idea of the experience.

49. Hail, Caesar! – The Coen Brothers are my favorite filmmakers. So strong is their output that even their “bad” movies are good movies by any other standard. I don’t wish to imply that “Hail, Caesar!” is one of their “bad” ones, but it’s definitely on the lower end of their spectrum. The promotional material led me to believe that it would be a comic thriller about a 1950’s Hollywood fixer (a “problem solver” for studios) who teams up with a number of colorful showbiz people to rescue a kidnapped leading man. While the basic plot is there, the movie feels more like a leisurely series of vignettes about the colorful characters, loosely-connected by the fixer asking them for their help. It’s all amusing, colorful, and beautifully shot by eternal Oscars bridesmaid Roger Deakins, but it feels like it’s missing any sort of narrative thrust or stakes. The Coens don’t seem to be going for that sort of film, and it feels intentionally meandering and light, so the film is better if you go in expecting it. The writing is entertaining, but while the film is certainly hilarious in parts and never boring, some comedic bits feel stretched out for far too long (such as the scene with the religious leaders), which is unusual for the Coens.

The whole endeavor is less about plot and more about being a fun tribute-by-way-of-pisstake to Old Hollywood. It reminds me a bit of their earlier work “Barton Fink”, albeit broader, sillier, less existential, and much less cynical. We see old-fashioned editing rooms, grand movie sets, a wonderful musical number, Communism, etc. The Coen Brothers made a film that feels nostalgic towards a simpler era of filmmaking, while still acknowledging that even back then they made crap films. The biggest selling point in the movie is its’ all-star cast. I can’t remember the last time a movie had this many big-name actors attached to it. Sadly, due to the light nature of the story, a lot of them feel like glorified cameos, even if there isn’t a weak link among them. George Clooney is in top-form in the role of the kidnapped actor, the type of buffoon the Coens always seem to make him play. Channing Tatum is great as a tap-dancing musical star. Completely stealing the show is up-and-comer Aldren Ehrenreich, who plays a dopey but sweet cowboy actor, and who is so naturally funny, likable and charismatic here that I don’t have a single doubt about him becoming huge in the near future.

It just goes to show that even a lesser Coen Bros. film is still vastly better than the best work by most directors. While slow and kind of pointless overall, “Hail, Caesar!” is still a funny, gorgeous, and charming homage to the Hollywood Golden Age, one that rewards attention and repeated viewings, and welcomes them as well.

48. Finding Dory – Not on par with “WALL-E” or “Up”, but entertaining and nicely emotional. Feels like a welcome return to form for Pixar after so many years of disappointments. Bonus points for being the good kind of sequel, one that not only works on its own but actually adds new dimension to the original. Kind of disappointing, because before seeing the movie I was all ready to say “Finding Dory? More like FOUND IT BORING”. Nice message about family and taking care of a family member with special needs. Looking forward to “Finding Marlin”, where we see Marlin as an alcoholic going through a midlife crisis as he tries to singlehandedly raise a crippled son and his mentally handicapped friend.

47. Deadpool – One of my biggest pet peeves in movies is characters breaking the fourth-wall. I don’t mind a film being cheeky, but a movie occasionally pausing itself to acknowledge that it’s a movie annoys me to no end. I say this because “Deadpool” actually does fourth-wall breaking right, making it a key part of the humor and tone and story rather than an occasional “look at how clever and ironic we are” moment.

One would think because of this that “Deadpool” is just an endless series of self-referential jokes. It mostly is, but thankfully there’s an actual story, a bicycle for all the colorful tassels to hang on. Don’t get me wrong; the story is generic as hell. It’s still your typical superhero origin story, albeit one helped greatly by the nonlinear structure, alluding to Deadpool as an unreliable narrator. Also helping is a surprisingly engaging romance aspect, thanks to Ryan Reynolds’ and Morena Baccarin’s great chemistry and that the romance is a key part of the main character’s motivations (and that the girl feels like an actual character, not just a crowbarred-in love interest like almost every other comic book movie). One of the best scenes in the film is a montage of them “celebrating” various holidays.

Reynolds is perfectly cast as Wade Wilson, a role that his whole career since “Van Wilder” has been building towards. He effortlessly captures the character’s smarminess and gallows humor, but also makes him just likable enough to root for. Baccarin shows enough personality and comic timing that I certainly won’t mind seeing her having a bigger role in the sequel. The action sequences are the highlights. Tim Miller (in his directing debut) shows a clear aptitude for this, making the fight scenes bloody, funny, and visually creative, doing more with $60 million than most directors can do with $200 million.

Your enjoyment of “Deadpool” will come from whether you like its sense of humor. Given the sheer amount of jokes the film flings at the wall, a number of them are going to fall flat. However, to me a lot of them did land, and the movie is quite funny despite being a bit too in love with itself, and any comedy film that doesn’t give away its best jokes in the trailer (especially with a marketing campaign like this film had) is worthy of a recommendation in my eyes.

46. Blood Father – This is the best Liam Neeson movie that Liam Neeson never made. The action is tense and hard-hitting, the cast is good, and the movie is a very lean and efficient 88 minutes. However, there’s some distractingly bad editing at times, the plot is typical Liam Neeson fare (daughter is in trouble with criminals and seeks out her estranged ex-con dad to help out) and the dialogue is pretty wonky and overly reliant on swearing. Also, the girl is fairly annoying, but I suppose it suits her character so I won’t judge her too much for it. What makes the movie work is Mel Gibson’s performance. Looking increasingly like a shredded, captivity-era Saddam Hussein, Gibson is a volcano almost constantly on the verge of eruption. He plays a pissed-off man better than anyone, but he also showcases a good deal of humor and heart, able to convey more with his demeanor than most actors can with an entire monologue. Plus, watching him bite a guy’s ear off before head-butting him repeatedly is great fun. While Gibson is definitely better than the film’s B-movie material, he sells the hell out of it, elevating everything around him and making up for a lot of the movie’s flaws (you get the feeling it’d be much better if he directed it, as well). “Blood Father” is not quite the Mel Gibson renaissance-marking comeback I keep hoping for, but it’s good enough to recommend. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait another few years to be reminded how great of an actor he is. Can’t quell the Mel.

45. The Brothers Grimsby (AKA Grimsby) - It’s been a while since we’ve gotten a comedy from Sacha Baron Cohen. His stuff other than “Borat” has gotten a mixed reception, but I’ve always felt that that as a comic he has excellent timing and creativity, and even when not doing his famous “interacting with real people while in character” routine, the guy knows how to put together a joke. In a comedy world filled increasingly with endless cameos and cringe-worthy improv humor, it’s relieving to see a comedian that can still write a solid gag and perform it well.

Cohen plays Nobby, a trashy but kind-hearted English football hooligan who lives in Grimsby, a town so squalid that on a sign it says that its sister city is Chernobyl. He’s spent decades searching for his long-lost younger brother Sebastian (played by Mark Strong), and upon finally finding him he discovers that Sebastian is a highly-trained secret agent who is involved in stopping an elaborate terror attack. Naturally, shenanigans ensue which results in the two brothers teaming together to save the world. The plot is basically “What if James Bond had a fuckup brother?”

Some of the humor is as gross-out as it can get, getting plenty of use out of genitals and bodily fluids (there’s one sequence involving elephants that I don’t think I’ll ever forget). Quite a bit of the humor is based around English class differences, which may go over the head of American audiences, but I quite enjoyed. And some is just tastelessness and over-the-top comedic violence. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but I found myself surprised at how much did. There’s a good deal of set-ups and payoffs to the jokes, which I found refreshing, like someone actually spent time to craft the comedy in this film. I’ll say that I laughed pretty often, and I was never less than amused. Strong and Cohen have excellent chemistry together, and the film is at its best when it focuses on the two and their exchanges, with Strong proving to be an excellent straight-man to Cohen’s ridiculousness. It even has a nice little subplot about the two brothers bonding and coming to terms with why they were initially separated that even pays off during the climax.

The movie is a little over 80-minutes and moves at such a fast pace that even if a certain gag doesn’t work, it quickly moves past it. The trade-off to this is that when a gag does work, it’s not given much time to play out. I full-heartedly believe that brevity is the soul of wit, and it’s not a huge issue, but I do wish some of the jokes had a bit of breathing space. Probably the movie’s biggest sin is completely wasting its supporting cast. Penelope Cruz, Isla Fisher, Rebel Wilson, and Ian McShane all feel like bit players who are there just for plot purposes. Maybe that was intentional, to play the film like a straight-faced James Bond film with Cohen there to single-handedly derail it, but why cast talented, well-known actors in such useless bit parts?

I still recommend the film for being genuinely, unapologetically funny, and while a lot of its jokes are in bad taste, they never feel mean-spirited or overly edgy. They come from Cohen’s desire to shock you into laughing, but it feels self-aware and innocent enough that you’re more amused and bewildered rather than offended. Still, if gags about AIDS, incest, bestiality, casual gun violence, lower-class scum, and things being shoved into asses don’t sit well with you, then “The Brothers Grimsby” is not the bland, PG-13, all-inclusive safe-space you want, you precious snowflake.

44. Operation Avalanche – Starts off slowly and ploddingly but before long, it overcomes its’ potentially-gimmicky premise and occasionally unconvincing façade to become a surprisingly engaging and creative foray into “historical” found-footage bolstered by writer/director/star Matt Johnson’s deft storytelling and clear passion for filmmaking, with an unexpectedly excellent car chase to boot.

43. Loving – Jeff Nichols’ “Loving” is an account of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who were arrested and then exiled for being married in 1950’s Virginia, and whose case to return home eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court. Given the material and the convenient title, you’d think this was blatant Oscar-bait all the way through, but for the most part it’s not. Jeff Nichols’ empathetic direction and the strong, restrained performances by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as the two leads make this film feel human instead of exploitative. Nichols makes an interesting choice to keep the movie very personal and focused on the couple, with the broader Civil Rights Movement only briefly mentioned. I actually liked this approach as it makes you feel the pain and struggle and love of the characters first, and then by extension see how damaging prejudices (both institutional and personal) can be to people.

The film doesn’t completely escape Oscar-bait trappings, however. It still has the comedy-actor-playing-a-dramatic-role in the form of Nick Kroll as the ACLU lawyer assigned to the Lovings. He’s not bad or anything, but he feels a bit distracting and the role doesn’t amount to much. The music is fine, but it still has those corny inspirational cues at moments of triumph and perseverance, places where I think silence would have been much more effective. My biggest complaint is that it’s a Jeff Nichols movie and Michael Shannon is only in it for one scene. It's an important and good one, but you really wish he’d be in the movie more or maybe that’s just me because I LOVE MICHAEL SHANNON, HOLY SHIT. I've come to the conclusion that the quality of a Jeff Nichols film is often in direct proportion to how much Michael Shannon is in it (seriously, go see "Take Shelter" if you haven't already).

The best part of “Loving” is the two leads, who share a quiet but powerful chemistry, both of them reserved people whose love for each other you can feel in the littlest gestures and who don’t need any obvious histrionics or even words to show their feelings to the audience. It’s the solid core that makes the movie good, elegantly guided by Jeff Nichols’ confident and mature direction, even if the rest of it isn’t all that remarkable. Not quite a “Loving” for me, but eaily a “Liking”.

42. Deepwater Horizon - I’ve liked Peter Berg as a director ever since his underrated action-comedy “The Rundown”, starring The Rock back when he was still billed as “The Rock”. He shows an aptitude for action, pacing, and getting good performances out of his actors, but lately, he’s had a really bad case of hero worship. This, “Patriot’s Day” and “Lone Survivor” all have a frankly fetishistic view of real-life bravery, all ending in a text commending the bravery of those involved and including the names of victims, etc. This always felt like a cheap trick to me, one meant to elicit tears and nods of approval from middle-aged audience members who don’t go to the movies that often, rather than properly characterize his heroes. He gets around this somewhat by casting good actors who are likable enough that we care for them in spite of the weak writing and schlocky sense of patriotism. It all just feels weirdly exploitative of the real-life tragedies that the films depict.

As for the movie itself, it’s quite good. It starts with the prerequisite buildup on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, showing negligence on the part of some of the management and the BP executives (read: strawmen), while showing the intelligence on display by the regular, blue-collar engineers and oil rig workers. I don’t deny that things were actually like this (truthfully, I don’t care enough to look it up), but it does feel pretty clichéd in movie form. Then the disaster hits, and there’s a solid 40-or-so minutes of the rig blowing up while the crew scramble to try to contain the situation and evacuate. This part is great. Berg’s technical skill is on full display, helping you follow the characters and what’s going on despite a lot of them speaking in mostly technical terms and the setting feeling like being trapped in a maze that’s on fire. It’s fantastically gripping, edge-of-your-seat stuff, helped by the theater-shaking sound design and convincing visual effects.  The film ends with some tearful family reunions and heart-wrenching breakdowns when the survivors get back home. I’ll say that if I walked out of the film RIGHT after the screen faded to black, I would have a higher opinion about it.

If you like or at least don’t mind the hero-worship stuff, I’ll say that Deepwater Horizon is one of the year’s best-crafted thrillers, a disaster movie where the disaster actually feels scary and real as opposed to the dumb fun of something like “San Andreas”. I’m not against paying respects to the dead or to the bravery involved, but I think it should be done within the context of the film and the script, not forcing the audience to stay an extra five-minutes as some sort of memorial service that we paid money to attend.

41. Rams – This film is about a pair of Icelandic brothers who own neighboring sheep farms. They haven’t spoken to each other for 40 years due to implied but never explicitly-stated petty squabbles and stubborn jealousy, but are forced to work together to save their sheep when their flocks suffer from an outbreak of scrapie, a fatal degenerative disease that affects sheep and goats. This film is very affecting, low-key filmmaking, deftly handling heartbreaking drama, touching bonding, and even some surprisingly funny (albeit-bleak) comedy such as a scene where one character transports another to a hospital. It makes great use of the “show, don’t tell” filmmaking rule. Many scenes have little to no dialogue, but all serve a purpose in terms of plot or characterization or insight. The plot of sheep farmers trying to protect their flock may seem like a hard-to-relate-to storyline, but the film has universal themes of family and loss, and its observant and sympathetic storytelling makes the film accessible to anyone, even if they aren’t familiar with sheep mating procedures.

40. Kubo and the Two Strings - Laika has always been an overlooked animation studio, most known for making the wonderfully creepy “Coraline”, but finding little success in terms of box office even while their films are all quite good. Take “Kubo and the Two Strings”, a flawed but highly original and absolutely stunningly animated film that only managed to make a little over its production budget back, while “Zootopia” made over a billion dollars. Such is life.

The film itself is about a one-eyed boy named Kubo who is hunted by a vengeful demon and must team up with a magical monkey statue and a beetle-man to find some mystical MacGuffins that can help defeat it. It starts out very well, showing the boy’s daily routine of using his magic guitar and origami to tell stories to the local villagers. After shit goes inevitably down, it’s still quite compelling for a while, bringing a melancholy flavor to the boy’s journey and his interaction with his two companions. The problem is that the actual plot is pretty uninteresting, especially after the predictable late second-act plot twist, and while I can appreciate that the conflict resolution in the third act doesn’t just end by one character beating up another, the actual manner in which it’s resolved is pretty dumb.

The reason to see “Kubo and the Two Strings” is its gorgeous stop-motion animation. I had to smack my mouth a few times to remind myself that I wasn’t looking at high-quality CGI. It’s reassuring to learn that Laika is owned by the billionaire former CEO of Nike, so the studio isn’t exactly hurting for cash and can continue to focus on making their original and creative and beautiful movies without needing to dumb them down for most audiences, but it’s still a little depressing when good, accessible films fail to find their audience. While flawed (and nowhere near as good as “Coraline”), “Kubo and the Two Strings” is worth checking out if you love stop-motion animation as much as I do and you’re just waiting for the next Aardman film to come out.

39. April and the Extraordinary World - In an industry almost completely dominated by 3D CGI-animated films, it’s somewhat refreshing to come across a traditionally-animated 2D film. “April and the Extraordinary World” is a French film set in an alternate-history 1940’s where the world’s foremost scientists of the past several decades have gone missing, causing crucial technological innovation to not happen and for the world to continue relying on coal and eventually wood-burning steam power. In a world on the brink of war for resources, April is a young French woman whose parents are two of the missing scientists, and we follow her and her talking cat Darwin as they attempt to solve the mystery behind the disappearances.

I want to start off by mentioning the art style. The characters are the simple but expressive beady-eyed 2D people you’d expect from European animation, but the design of the bleak steampunk world and the technology is amazing. However, and this is what I really like about the film, while it shows how cool-looking steampunk technology can be, it also criticizes it for being completely retarded and impractical and damaging to both the environment and to people, cosplayers be damned (Europe is completely treeless and characters have to wear gas masks if they’re outdoors for too long). The characters (especially the talking cat) are spunky, entertaining, and even have their fair share of depth. The film carries a nice message about using science and optimism instead of violence and negativity to solve the world’s problems. This feels more like the film that “Tomorrowland” should have been, before it got Lindelof’d.

However, it does have kind of the same problem that “Tomorrowland” did, in that the third act gets pretty stupid. It’s certainly not as bad or as nonsensical as it was in that film, and while the plot twist and eventual revelation are actually built towards instead of just dumped on us, it does get rather silly and I sort of lost interest. Without spoiling too much, it does end up relying on that tiresome “in order to save humanity, we have to destroy it” sci-fi cliché that was dumb even back when “The Terminator” did it.

Still, on the whole, I was surprised by how much I liked “April and the Extraordinary World”. While it certainly loses some steam near the end (pun originally unintended), it’s still engaging and surprisingly entertaining enough for the duration of its running time to warrant a recommendation.

Note: If you can, see the French-dubbed version. The English voice actors are good, but the movie and lip-sync feel off by not being in their original language. For the record, this is the only time I’ll ever say that something (other than bread) is improved by being French.

38. Mascots – To me, a mark of a good comedy is if it makes me laugh a lot. By that criteria, Christopher Guest’s latest mockumentary about a professional mascot competition and its participants is a good comedy. There’s not much to say about this film if you’re familiar with Guest’s other improv-heavy comedy films, and structurally it’s very similar to “Best in Show”. It’s not as good as that gem, partly because it feels like a more manufactured scenario, a parody of a part of culture and a competition that doesn’t feel real in the first place (as opposed to the biting satire of the very real world of professional dog-shows), and partly because Fred Willard is only in this for like 5-10 minutes instead of 40-45. Guest regulars Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara’s absences are also felt.

Still, what I like about Guest’s style of comedy that I despise about the Judd Apatow/SNL style of improv is the timing. He knows how to edit his jokes and his characters to keep them funny, and he knows when to let a joke go, as opposed to letting it linger and rot. The fact that he doesn’t write screenplays or hold any rehearsals for himself and his cast pretty much means that he films them performing improv and leaves in whatever is funny. Despite the aforementioned absences, the cast here is still great (with standout performances by Parker Posey, Susan Yeagley, and the guy who fucks from “Silicon Valley”), the movie has plenty of laughs and a surprising amount of poignancy and sweetness, and some of the actual mascot routines in the latter half of the movie are both hilarious and even breathtaking, particularly one involving an expressionist modern-dance about feminism and art in an armadillo costume.

37. The Accountant - One of the most entertainingly uneven films I’ve seen in a long time, “The Accountant” tries to be a character study, a corporate thriller, an operator-style action film, a family drama, a quirky comedy, a PSA about autism, and it even flirts with being an odd-couple romance. It never really comes together in the traditional sense, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a blast watching it try.

The plot is about an autistic accountant who in his secret-life uncooks finances for some of the world’s most dangerous people, and how a seemingly simple assignment in auditing a robotics firm becomes dangerous and blah-blah-blah. This movie has far too much plot and little of it is worth caring about. Where it works surprisingly well is in the character study of the main character, Christian Wolff (who sounds like a name belonging to a character in a cheap erotic novel you can find in airport shops). You see his upbringing, the circumstances that led him to his current career, and his routines in trying to deal with life with high-functioning autism. I (cheekily) said from the start that Ben Affleck is perfect casting for an ass-kicking autist but he’s actually, genuinely, unironically good in a committed and fleshed-out performance that wouldn’t feel out of place in a more serious movie about adults with autism.

In trying to do the other aspects, however, the movie kind of falls apart. The first act is a mostly straightforward setup that you could be forgiven for thinking that it won’t even be a thriller. Wolff’s awkward bluntness around neuro-typicals is played for mild chuckles, because of course it is. Only at the end of it do we see that he’s a badass operator once he’s betrayed and people try to kill him. The second act where a government agent played by J.K. Simmons gives us a 10-minute exposition dump is pretty dull. There’s a hint of some romance between Wolff and a young accountant whose life he saved played by Anna Kendrick, but thankfully it’s never fully realized (“Gosh, I find your lack of social development and the way you cleanly killed the men who attacked me soooo sexy.”)

It’s only in the third act where he goes out to get the people who are after him where the movie becomes a wonderful nirvana of schlock, the “John Wick meets Rain Man” asploitation I hoped it would be. I’m not going to spoil too much, but it has the two funniest plot twists of any film this year, a solid 5 minutes where a caretaker at a home for autistic children gives a PSA about caring for people with disabilities, and a hilarious and completely unnecessary villainous monologue for the ages, courtesy of a paycheck-loving John Lithgow. My only complaint at that point were that there were no accounting-related one-liners in the film, including but not limited to:

- I just depreciated YOUR LIFE

- Don't write me off as a loss just yet

- They must be held accountable

- She's becoming a liability

- He's likes torturing people. He's accrual man

- A character named General Ledger

I don’t know. I chose a dull major, alright?

36. Moonlight – Clichéd dialogue and an annoying tendency to skip over some important/interesting events in the main character’s life, but empathetic performances, a great cast, and a good understanding and balance of the movie’s story and its’ theme of identity. I’m a bit of a tough nut to crack, emotionally speaking, so I feel like the subtle approach from this movie didn’t affect me as much as it did the many people who hail this film as the Second Coming of Christ.

35. Kill Zone 2 – Insane, jaw-dropping, balls-to-the-wall fight scenes that are too often hampered or outright interrupted by that silly and intrusive “plot” nonsense that unfortunately characterizes most post-Jackie Hong Kong kung-fu films. Still, any film that has Tony Jaa doing a flying double knee through a bus windshield and into the driver gets a recommendation from me.

34. Anthropoid – “War is not romantic”.

I’ve always held a soft spot for well-made genre films, and “Anthropoid”, a World War II thriller that, despite a title and poster that look like they belong to some sci-fi horror movie, is certainly that. “Anthropoid” is about a historical real-life mission by the Czech Resistance to assassinate a high-ranking Nazi official in occupied Prague. What I like about this movie is how solemn it is. None of the good guys are clear-eyed heroes who live happily ever after. These are anxious, grimly-professional saboteurs. Most of the resistance members question over whether killing one man is worth the possible consequences it would bring to the Czech people, while the two leads soldier on, determined to follow their orders. Cillian Murphy and the guy from “50 Shades of Grey” (Jamie Dornan) make for a likable pair of leads, and the characters feel human instead of movie-ish. Even during their romances with two local Prague women, it feels less like forced Hollywood trite and more like people trying to comfort each other in a hopelessly bleak environment.

The movie starts slow, but builds well to the more thrilling stuff. Interestingly (minor spoiler), the assassination attempt only occurs halfway through the movie, with the second half being the fallout and repercussions. A more generic movie would have ended with the assassination, before including text commending the bravery of the Czech Resistance and how their mission was successful, but “Anthropoid” instead shows and talks about the horrible things the Nazis did in retaliation, including killing thousands of Czech civilians, before showing what happens to the Resistance members involved in the assassination. I won’t ruin it, but the last half-hour of the movie is pretty devastating stuff.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Anthropoid, as long as you don’t mind the slow build. It doesn’t really strive for greatness or deep meaning in any way. It’s just a well-made, well-acted, tense, bleak, and morally grey look at an important event in World War II and how it (and war in general) affects people. Bonus points for the cast actually making an effort to speak with Czech accents, instead of the usual historical non-British movie done entirely with British accents.

33. The Siege of Jadotville – Hey, speaking of solid genre flicks starring Jamie Dornan! I love a good war film, so when I heard that when Netflix produced one set during the Congo Crisis of the 1960’s, a refreshing change from the usual “popular” wars like WWII, ‘Nam, and Iraq/Afghanistan, my ears perked up. The plot is about an Irish company of UN peacekeepers who are sent to the tiny town of Jadotville in the resource-rich Congo during a period of upheaval and civil war. Murky politics and other UN operations in the area make things worse, and in retaliation the rebel government and French/Belgian mercenaries send a massive force to attack the isolated Irish troops.

There’s about 40 minutes of setup, in which we see the soldiers (led by Dornan), most of them still teenagers, at home before they get shipped off, we get a broad overview of the political climate in the Congo, including the coup leader and the UN representative sent to assist the central government (played by a shitty hairpiece with a Mark Strong attached to it), as well as the situation that led to tits going up for the peacekeepers. The remaining hour of the movie is the titular week-long siege, with the Irish defending a tactically disadvantaged position with limited food, ammo, and water against a very numerically superior enemy.

All of this is very well-crafted, with good pacing and editing, especially during the battle scenes, which are tense, harrowing, and filmed in a way that you actually get a solid idea of the geography of the siege. History, and even the movie at one point, both say that there were 150 UN troops at Jadotville, but it never seems like there's more than a few dozens of them. It's not a huge issue, but a little distracting.

The characters are pretty thin, with only a handful of the soldiers actually having names, and the writing is nothing special. It’s efficient in the sense that it gets the necessary information across and doesn’t intrude on the story, but it does have the usual clichés you see in a war film. The soldiers are portrayed as brave, noble, and heroic, while the UN leaders and generals are shown as callous, selfish, and incompetent. After some reading into the history, I found that this is not untrue, but it still feels like a conventional audience-pleasing dynamic. To the film’s credit however, it does a nice job of showing how morally grey the conflict was, without really claiming moral superiority for either side, but still makes you care for the UN soldiers at the heart of it. Even the trademark ending text is done tastefully and respectfully.

If you want a compelling, well-crafted war film and have a Netflix subscription, then “The Siege of Jadotville” is worth checking out. Between this and “Anthropoid”, Jamie Dornan has proven himself a capable (and wonderfully mustached) leading man, and in my eyes has done a good job getting his reputation back to “respectable” after “Fifty Shades of Grey” and...oh, there's two sequels to it coming out? Well, here's hoping for more good war films from the lad afterwards.

32. Doctor Strange – Same-old shit from Marvel, in terms of writing and story, but at least contains enough beautiful visuals and creativity to take away a good deal of the staleness. Bonus points for having a climax that is the exact opposite of a typical superhero destruction-fest.

31. The Magnificent Seven – At a film festival like TIFF, which is mainly meant for foreign, independent, arthouse films and prestige pictures, “The Magnificent Seven”, a remake of John Sturges’ 1960 original and an unapologetic, old-fashioned Western, stands out. As a genre-film aficionado, that appealed to me enough that I saw this movie even though it would come out in theaters a few weeks later.

And I’m glad I did. “The Magnificent Seven” is just plain, loud, over-the-top fun. If you see the trailer, the movie is exactly what you think it’ll be like. A woman seeks frontier justice against the power-hungry coal baron who terrorizes her town and murdered her husband, and pays a bounty hunter (Denzel Washington, who looks like he was born to play a cowboy in this movie) to go after him. He recruits 6 more outlaws, killers, and warriors to aid him in his quest to protect the honest townsfolk from the evil businessman and his army. Whiskey is drunk, guns are drawn, banter is exchanged, and lots of people get shot and blown up. Antoine Fuqua (an expert in making solid genre flicks) keeps the movie paced well, gives the characters breathing space to flesh out a bit, and makes the action loud, exciting, and well-filmed. No shaky-cam bullshit here, just good, efficient filmmaking with lots of nice Western vistas.

The cast is strong, especially Washington and Chris Pratt (who I worried would be out of place but acquits himself well here), along with solid supporting players. The writing is nothing special, but gets the job done, although there are some unfortunate missed opportunities at character development and payoffs, especially when it comes to Ethan Hawke’s (fabulously named) Goodnight Robicheaux, a former Confederate sharpshooter who hung up his guns. Also, a minor issue, but the film severely overplays how effective a mid-19th century gatling gun is.

There’s nothing altogether remarkable about this remake from a quality standpoint, but in a year filled with failed reboots and sequels and unremarkable superhero films, a good, solid personality-filled Western shoot-em-up about a multicultural team of badasses teaming up against the evil establishment is more than a welcome breath of fresh air.

30. Everybody Wants Some!! - Richard Linklater’s spiritual sequel to “Dazed and Confused” feels very much like a Richard Linklater film. There’s not much plot; it’s just about a college freshman baseball player and his team’s escapades over the weekend before the semester starts in the fall of 1980, as they hang out, go party, try to get laid, and attend their first practice. There’s no real structure to this film. It’s meandering in typical Linklater fashion, where the movie is more about the characters, the setting, and the dialogue. If you don’t mind this sort of thing, “Everybody Wants Some!!” is a very enjoyable movie. The characters and performances are on point, the banter is entertaining, the music is great (used especially well during a scene where the characters drive around town singing “Rapper’s Delight”) and even when Linklater waxes philosophical as he sometimes tends to, it feels less pretentious and more like the characters being themselves. When they talk about life, man, they’re often drunk or high or sleep-deprived, which feels like a nice bit of self-awareness from Linklataer. It even gets a bit inspirational at times, as the themes of finding out your identity and place in life and making the most of your short time on this Earth hits home surprisingly well. Funny, charming, and likable in every way that “Boyhood” wasn’t, “Everybody Wants Some!!” marks a welcome return to form for Richard Linklater, which is amazing considering it didn’t even take TWELVE YEARS to make.

29. Love & Friendship – Not being a big fan of hoity-toity costume dramas and having never read any of Jane Austen’s work, I really didn’t think this Austen adaptation would appeal to me. However, following the initial 10-15 minutes where my brain adjusted to the Regency-era English, I found that I really enjoyed this film. It’s a comedy of manners centered on a widowed socialite (played by the never-better Kate Beckinsale), a cunning and manipulative woman who is well-known as the best flirt in London, and her attempts to get her daughter married to a wealthy suitor as she herself juggles those in her social circles. I found myself loving the barbed interplay between well-written characters. The cast is uniformly excellent, with a strong performance by Beckinsale and a show-stealing turn from Tom Bennett as a wealthy but utterly gormless suitor, the kind of man who keeps talking even when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and who is completely enchanted by the “tiny green balls” at dinner (peas). The whole movie is kind of plotless, with very little narrative drive and it feels like important character developments are often skimmed over (two characters have a pleasant conversation in one scene and are married like, 5 minutes later). The whole movie feels very light, albeit very watchable. Watch it for the excellent cast, the lovely sets and costumes, and for the genuinely hilarious writing, but don’t expect to be all that invested in what happens. The whole thing feels like a dinner party with much wittier and politer versions of your extended family, albeit just as catty and spiteful.

28. Captain America: Civil War - By now most people have acknowledged the problems with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While most are solid superhero flicks, they all feel kind of safe and sterile, films marked-tested to appeal to as large an audience as possible. While this leaves less room for error, it also limits how good they can become. If all you want is good actors wearing ridiculous costumes punching each other and destroy expensive CGI environments while mumbling groan-worthy quips, the MCU has got you covered. Those of us who want them to approach something like Raimi’s Spider-Man films or Nolan’s first two Batman films are often left wanting. Sometimes it has gotten better than the norm. The first half of “Captain America: The First Avenger” was excellent before it became kind of a rushed mess in the second. Shane Black’s “Iron Man 3” felt like the only genuinely auteur-driven film in the whole MCU (if only because so much of the humor is based on what Black and Downey Jr. accomplished in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”). “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is still the high point of the MCU, a terrific and surprisingly character-driven action thriller that barely felt like a superhero flick. The point I’m laboriously trying to get to is that while “Civil War” for the most part takes itself seriously and actually approaches “Winter Soldier” levels of greatness, it can’t help but fall back on the lame, quippy, fanboy-masturbating sameness that has defined this cinematic universe since Joss Whedon first got involved with the franchise.

The plot is that a mysterious man frames Captain America’s friend Bucky for a terrorist attack, while Tony Stark feels guilty about collateral damage caused by the Avengers’ various battles and wants to sign some UN accord to make the Avengers government regulated, and tries to hunt Cap down when he goes rogue to try and protect Bucky. It’s pretty convoluted stuff if you’re not already caught up on the franchise, but not too difficult to follow. My main concern going into this film was that it’d be more of an “Avengers” film than a “Captain America” film. Cap’s films have a good track record, while the two Avengers movies are kinda crap. Thankfully, the heavy focus is on Cap and his efforts to protect Bucky from an increasingly hostile and angry Tony Stark. Despite what the marketing tries to say, the whole UN accord business feels minor at best, only there for a #WhoseSideAreYouOn hashtag to appease the autists who want their precious comic-book to be faithfully adapted. The story is surprisingly engaging, and while the aforementioned mysterious man is the real villain and does an effective job, the role of antagonist is actually filled really well by Iron Man. The characters are given enough room that pretty much everyone in the ensemble gets a moment to shine, the pacing is good, and (despite the Russo Brothers’ annoying use of shaky-cam and fast editing) the action scenes are solid and actually serve a purpose. It was almost a great “Captain America” film. And then Spider-Man shows up.

Spider-Man was added to this film halfway through filming due to Marvel striking a deal with Sony Pictures for the rights to the character, and his crowbarring into the movie is really obvious. There’s a whole half-hour of the movie that he’s in, where from introduction to the big punch-up at the airport to his exit, it feels like a completely different film, filled with the aforementioned light-hearted quippy humor that pretty much completely dissolves all tension, momentum, and conflict that movie had done a pretty good job building up to that point. It’s not bad in and of itself, but it feels like it suddenly became an “Avengers” movie, a big-budget re-enactment of a 10-year-old boy playing with his action figures. The only reason I don’t despise this part of the movie is because it at least has a few genuinely funny moments (most of them courtesy of Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man). The film recovers fairly well from this, and actually serves up a strong and pretty emotional climax that isn’t just wanton CGI destruction, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth, like I was bukkake’d by neo-nerd hipsters while sleeping and managed to clean myself off but the stains on my soul remained.

Look, I’ve said a bunch of negative (and some disgusting) things about this movie and the MCU in general, but “Civil War” is overall a good movie. The character work is strong, it’s occasionally funny, the cast is mostly terrific, and it’s definitely in the upper-echelon of this franchise. But the things that hold this series back (the sameness, the dull visuals, the lack of stakes, circlejerking, etc.) hold this movie back as well. Who knows? Once they’re done with this phase of the MCU, they can actually start to experiment and not just make the same kind of movie over and over, because let’s face it; people will come see these anyway. Hell, give me a She-Hulk movie directed by David Lynch, or a blaxploitation-style origin story about Nick Fury starring Michael Jai White, or a musical romantic-comedy about Squirrel Girl directed by George Miller. I don’t know. I’d rather see any of those than ANOTHER GODDAMN SPIDER-MAN REBOOT.

27. Train to Busan – Pretty much what you’d expect, plot and character-wise, from a zombie movie, but damned if South Korea doesn’t possess some of the finest film directors in the world, and Yeon Sang-Ho brings his A-game to revitalize an appropriately undead genre. Great cast, intense and creative set-pieces, and a nicely emotional focus on character. I’m not Korean, so I’m not sure if there’s any satire or message involved (the film does seem like a pretty accurate depiction of South Korea when StarCraft II servers go down). Somewhat dragged down by iffy CGI and the hair-pulling stupidity and dickheadedness of main human antagonist, who makes “The Walking Dead” Season 2-era Shane seem like a rational and believable fellow.

26. Fences – Little more than a filmed play, but a well-filmed one bolstered by good writing and knockout performances from Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. About 20 minutes too long.

25. Arrival - Canadian director Denis Villeneuve has been making quite the reputation for himself in recent years for his mature and well-crafted thrillers. While I find his movies just a touch overrated, I do admire a lot in them, from the technical craft to his ability to command strong performances out of all of his actors. This year’s “Arrival” continues that trend, marking his most mature film to date and one of the extremely rare mainstream hard science-fiction movies to come out these days. This is not a movie about laser battles and space explosions and sticking your tongue down the throats of hot human-looking alien babes (I’m excited for “Mass Effect: Andromeda”, alright?), but about communication.

Several banana-shaped alien spacecraft touch down at random points around the earth without any apparent motive or pattern, and countries around the globe bring experts together to try and communicate with them. The plot centers around linguistics professor Amy Adams, who is brought in by the military along with a physicist played by Jeremy Renner to head into the alien craft in America to try and set up communications with the aliens. It’s a neat perspective to see one of these alien contact movies from someone trying to understand them rather than fight them, and Amy Adams turns in another strong performance as a woman who is experiencing a personal crisis while being at the very center of a worldwide phenomenon. The rest of the cast is good too, but this is her movie to command, and she does so with ease.

While Villeneuve no longer has Roger Deakins as director of photography to rely on, he and his new DP Bradford Young make this a very strikingly beautiful movie, filled with bleak subdued colors but with an astonishing sense of scale. The scene where Amy Adams enters the alien craft for the first time is outstanding, with the camera work, lighting, and environment doing a genuinely amazing job conveying how…well, alien the ship feels. I also like the design of the aliens themselves (a sort-of cross between the facehuggers from “Alien” and the Reapers from “Mass Effect”), a refreshing change from the humanoid aliens you typically see in sci-fi.

The plot is surprisingly brainy, primarily concerned with the process of establishing of communication and later a very different perception of time and choice from how we typically perceive them. It’s not too difficult to wrap your head around this stuff, but you do have to pay attention, because this isn’t a movie that dumbs itself down or holds your hand.

As much as I admire and enjoyed the movie, I do have a criticism, and it’s that the whole thing feels…cold. I don’t just mean the color palette or the really strong air conditioning in the theater where I watched it. I mean emotionally cold. I’ve heard a lot of people praise how emotional the film is, but it didn’t really affect me all that much. Even the scenes with Amy Adams and her daughter, no matter how Malick-y they’re shot, felt mostly like salad dressing to try and make the audience connect with the main character. Even when you (no-spoiler) find out the plot significance of these scenes, I liked it much more on an intellectual level than on a gut-level. Also, and this part is hard to explain without spoilers, but there’s a love story that’s pretty crucial to the theoretical concepts later in the film that feels comically underdeveloped, like we’re supposed to believe these people fall in love despite working with each other for a few days and rarely talking about anything other than work (and because they’re attractive movie stars, of course). Plus, there are quite a few annoyingly clichéd characters, like the fear-mongering radio talk show host, the weary and no-nonsense military man, and a Chinese officer named General Shang who apparently rules the entire country of China without answering to anybody.

Despite these niggles, I still liked “Arrival” a lot. It attempts (and in my mind strongly succeeds) to present a realistic scenario of what alien contact would be like in today’s political and cultural climate, and again, it’s really refreshing to see a science-fiction film where science, communication and peace are used for conflict resolution as opposed to violence. It’s really ambitious on both a thematic level and a technical one (the special effects in this movie are some of the most seamless and believable I’ve ever seen), and even the problems I have with the writing don’t distract from Denis Villeneuve’s directorial talent. Here’s hoping he doesn’t screw up the new “Blade Runner”.

24. Shin Godzilla – Lacks the awe-inspiring visuals and sense of scale of Gareth Edwards’ “Godzilla” (which I forgive because this had like 1/10th the budget), but makes up for it with a richer story and sense of humanity. Whereas that film is about our powerlessness at the hands of giant monsters, this one is more about working together to overcome it. What begins as a bureaucratic farce eventually gives way to the Japanese government putting aside any squabbles and politics to focus on saving the lives of its citizens from a giant, rampaging lizard. It’s kind of inspiring to see a movie like this where a government tries to prevent destruction instead of causing it (with a not-so-subtle pisstake of the Americans, whose contribution to the efforts amounts to little more than bombing and almost nuking Tokyo). Plus, Godzilla himself is awesome here, looking and acting like a genuine monster, and pulled off with a nice mix of practical and digital effects (other than his initial form where he looks like a retarded CGI iguana with googly eyes). Kickass soundtrack, as well.

23. War on Everyone – “I’ve always wondered; if you hit a mime (with a car), does he make a sound?” Michael Peña’s character wonders out loud at the start of the movie, right before he and his partner (and driver) find out. Within one minute of the movie, you already know if it’s for you or not. “War on Everyone” is about two cops (Peña and Alexander Skarsgård) who are as corrupt as they come. They regularly blackmail and beat up suspects, take bribes, and drink on the job. They never really try to justify this behavior. Their attitude can be best summed up by a line Skarsgård says before getting into the driver’s seat of a car while piss-drunk; “Let’s go fuck some scumbags.” There’s some plot about their investigation into a robbery/murder orchestrated by the guy from those shitty “Divergent” movies who looks like discount-Toby Kebbell, but the plot feels like an afterthought. It’s more so about the two characters and their antics and their musings on life, greatly enlivened by the excellent performances and chemistry of the two leads, as well as the cracking, pitch-black funny script from writer/director John Michael McDonagh (who also made the fantastic Irish gems “Calvary” and “The Guard”). This feels like if McDonagh made a Shane Black film. It’s not a powerful meditation on faith and morality like “Calvary” and it’s not a great character-study like “The Guard”, but “War on Everyone” shows that even a lower-tier McDonagh film is still as hilarious and biting as they come, and it even comes with a bit of heart and soul. Still, definitely not recommended to the easily-offended. It feels kind of pointless, but I could listen to McDonagh characters talk shit to each other all day.

22. 10 Cloverfield Lane - I will try to be as spoiler-free as possible in this review. Honestly, if you STILL haven’t seen it and want to, just go watch it and know that it definitely comes recommended.

I’ll admit it; even though I wasn’t a huge fan of the shaky-cam monster-athon that was “Cloverfield”, the mysterious and vague trailer for “10 Cloverfield Lane” got me properly hyped up as I tried to figure out the connection between the two movies. In an unusual twist, most of the movie is only tangentially a work of science-fiction. The plot is about a young woman named Michelle who runs away from home as some vague disaster occurs. She’s knocked out, and wakes up in an underground survival shelter run by a paranoid survivalist named Howard, along with a young guy named Emmett. Howard says that there has been a massive attack, but Michelle is skeptical and is unsure if Howard is trustworthy or crazy.

The bulk of the film is in the bunker, as the trio try to cope with the various realities of living in a survival shelter, including each other. This entire section is excellent. Deftly alternating between lighthearted bonding, uncomfortable comedy, and pressure-cooker intensity, debut director Dan Trachtenberg shows he is an expert when it comes to tone, pacing, and atmosphere, further enlivened by Bear McCreary’s terrific score. Even better is the main trio of actors, all of whom play off of each other well and really flesh out their characters. The guy who plays Emmett displays a dopey likability that suits the character well, while Mary Elizabeth Winstead makes Michelle much more intelligent, tough and compelling than your average "horror" protagonist (I use that term broadly). Powerfully commanding the whole movie is John Goodman, who easily makes Howard sympathetic at times and genuinely terrifying at others. This is a brilliantly batshit performance by one of our very best character actors, and even if the rest of the production wasn’t up to par (which it definitely is), he alone would make this film worth watching.

The reason this movie isn’t higher on my list is because of the last 10-or-so minutes. Without going into detail (and the trailer gives this away anyway), Michelle leaves the bunker by the end. It’s like the entire film gets wrapped up and ends satisfyingly, but then it goes on for another 10 minutes that feels like a completely different movie with a whiplash-inducing change in tone. It’s all still skillfully made and well-acted, but the effect just feels bizarre if you’re watching it for the first time. At first I thought the sequence was there to connect it to the first “Cloverfield” and make it a semi-sequel, but it’s too vague for me to buy it.

Maybe it is all some continuous “Cloverfield” universe, or better yet, it’s an anthology film series in the vain of “The Twilight Zone” or “Black Mirror”, one where talented up-and-coming directors make unique sci-fi thrillers. If that’s the case, it’s best not to read too much into the ending, and to just try and accept the movie as a standalone despite the jarring tonal shift at the end. One thing I actually quite liked about the ending is that it satisfyingly concludes Michelle’s character arc, making her a surprisingly well-developed protagonist that has actually grown by the end. Maybe if I watch this again (and I do plan to), I’ll like it more and probably give it a higher spot on the list, but even on a first impression, “10 Cloverfield Lane” is an engaging and balls-tighteningly tense thriller with a top-notch cast and production working at the top of their game. John Goodman is so good, man.

21. London Has Fallen – Holy hell, where do I even begin? Rare is the movie where I honestly cannot tell if it’s trying to be a comedy or not. It has a serious post-9/11 depiction of terrorism, but it treats all the bad guys like cannon fodder to be disposed of in spectacular ways. It has some lines about the consequences of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, but these lines are throwaway at best and never brought up again. It tries to somewhat humanize its villains, but it also has Gerard Butler executing a wheel-chair bound terrorist before going on a tirade about how they’ll never win and that America will still be standing in a thousand years (not sure if the Third Reich comparison is intentional).

The action scenes are competently shot/staged, if unremarkable (despite a fun CGI-assisted long-take shootout). The script feels like it was either written in a weekend or improvised on the spot by Butler and company. In fact, I feel like this wasn’t originally written as a sequel to “Olympus Has Fallen”. None of the previous movie’s events are referenced, and all the recurring cast members (save for Butler and Aaron Eckhart) feel like glorified crowbarred-in cameos. It’s absurd to have a White House cabinet of Oscar winners/nominees and give them all a collective 5 minutes of screen-time. I’m pretty sure Oscar-winner Melissa Leo doesn’t even have any lines. I’m sure the paycheck was nice, at least. The first 15 minutes or so are fairly boring, even if things pick up considerably afterwards.

The one indisputable quality this movie has is Gerard Butler. Butler gives a genuinely jaw-dropping performance as bloodthirsty and very likely insane Secret Service agent Mike Banning (our hero, naturally). Mike Banning is the type of guy who reacts to getting shot in the shoulder and the birth of his child with roughly the same facial expression. Mike Banning is the type of guy who despite being very proficient with and usually having convenient access to firearms, frequently elects to brutally stab the bad guys numerous times with a combat knife. (“Was that really necessary?” President Aaron Eckhart asks after Banning slowly stabs a terrorist in the ribs to death while making his brother listen via walkie-talkie. “No”, Banning bluntly admits.) Even from the peaceful initial scenes of him accompanying the President on a jog or talking to his wife, you can tell something is very off about him. We as the audience are of course expecting/awaiting shit to hit the fan, but Butler is nearly trembling with anticipation to start murdering terrorists during these scenes. Butler makes almost every bit of dialogue sound like a badass one-liner, on one occasion offering the President a glass of water while saying “I don’t know about you, but I’m thirsty as fuck”, spewing the word “fuck” out of the side of his mouth like a shotgun blast. Even on the off-chance that the movie isn’t taking the piss, Butler most definitely is. I’m not being ironic when I say that this is one of the great comic performances of our time, and the success of the movie (for me) is due to the movie being centered around Butler and his hilariously absurd machoism.

The director of this movie is an Iranian who escaped his war-torn home to Sweden as a boy. This, coupled with Butler’s performance, Butler and Eckhart’s borderline-homoerotic bromance, the ridiculous one-liners and speeches, and an indefensibly heroic portrayal of drone-warfare, makes me feel like “London Has Fallen” is really one big satire of U.S. foreign policy subtly disguised as a stupid, offensive action movie, something conservative idiots will applaud, liberal idiots will condemn, and fun, smart, attractive people will appreciate and enjoy for what it is. I saw this and “Gods of Egypt” with a few friends as a sort of once-in-a-lifetime Gerard Butler double-feature, and I had a grand time.

I felt like I could smell this movie, and I like that. Watching “London Has Fallen” is like sex; You wouldn’t want someone walking in on you during, and you’ll probably want to take a shower afterwards, but once you get past the initial foreplay, it’s a great time from start to raucous, bloody finish.

Wow, that metaphor got gross in a hurry.

20. The Witch – I put off watching “The Witch” because every time in the past few years that people heralded the newest “great, modern horror film” (It Follows, The Babadook, etc.), I found them to be massively overrated and even a bit disappointing, even despite their good qualities. After finally seeing it, I can safely say that it’s definitely one of the best horror films in years (which isn’t saying much, but still).

The story is of an early 17th century Puritan family who get exiled from their village and set up a farm in an isolated area near the woods. Strange supernatural things start happening to them, and the movie becomes the gradual degradation of their mental states, as they start to blame and fight amongst each other, not unlike my beloved “The Thing”.

This is a very atmospheric, slow-burning kind of horror. The emphasis is on creeping dread rather than murdering attractive 20-something teenagers. For a first-time filmmaker, director Robert Eggers shows an excellent grasp of pacing, tone, and visual storytelling. Once you get used to the historical Ye Olde English manner in which the characters speak (subtitles are recommended), the writing is surprisingly quite good, with well-defined characters with clear conflicts and motivations. The acting ensemble is terrific. The whole movie is pretty much just two parents, a teenage daughter, an adolescent boy, and two young children, and they are all fantastic. Seriously, as someone who despises children (both in real life and in film), this is some of the best child-acting I’ve ever seen.

My problem with the movie is that (and this is kind of a spoiler, but it happens early in the film) I was hoping that it wouldn’t be clear whether or not the supernatural stuff is actually happening, or if the family is just losing their minds because of some clever metaphor or allegory. But no, it’s revealed pretty early on that it is actually supernatural stuff, which takes away some of the surprise and the suspense. The music is the kind of discordant “unnerving” string-heavy stuff you’d expect in a horror movie, and I often felt that silence would be much more effective during the scenes it’s used in.  Also, without giving away anything, the ending is pretty silly. It wraps up the story and the character arc of the lead character (the teenage daughter), but the manner in which it does it felt kind of over-the-top. You know what, though? I honestly thought we would get some shitty, cop-out, cut-to-black ending 5 minutes earlier, so it’s not that big of a deal. I’ll take a retarded ending over a non-ending any day of the week.

“The Witch” is a horror movie for those who don’t like horror movies, and one that treats its audience with intelligence and respect, and (the last few minutes notwithstanding) is actually satisfying and builds well to its climax. As someone who doesn’t care much for horror movies, I would say that “The Witch” lives up to the hype, and is well-worth checking out. Also, best (and surprisingly similar) use of a goat since Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell”.

19. Nocturnal Animals – A problem a lot of movies have for me in particular is when they’re tonally or stylistically inconsistent, feeling like two separate movies at odds with each other. Tom Ford’s “Nocturnal Animals” is a rare example of a movie with strikingly different stories complementing each other and actually improving the end product. The film is about a LA art exhibitor played by Amy Adams, who has an unhappy personal life despite her successful professional life. One day, her long-estranged ex-husband sends her a copy of his upcoming novel, a violent thriller about a family man terrorized by hillbillies in West Texas. The movie cuts between the novel’s story, Adams’ current life, and her past relationship with the ex-husband.

Tom Ford showed with his debut “A Serious Man” that he was great at filming and telling a story about people in rich houses being sad, as he does here, but also displays an uncanny talent at filming a gritty desert-set revenge tale. The parallels between the real life story and the novel are very finely drawn, and while I found the novel sections much more gripping than the Amy Adams story, the seemingly-disparate styles and tones never clash and instead fit really well with each other, creating a movie that is more than the sum of its parts. For a fashion designer, it’s surprising how good of a writer and director Tom Ford is, and he shows that “A Single Man” wasn’t just beginner’s luck.

Also helping the movie is the fantastic cast. Jake Gyllenhaal gives one of his best performances as both the ex-husband and the protagonist of the novel story, and Amy Adams shows incredible nuance and subtlety, reminding us why she is one of the best actresses working today. Michael Shannon steals the show for me (yes, I love him and I’m biased, shut up) as a shady detective in the novel’s story. All the supporting players are great as well, even if their roles aren’t as meaty.

My main complaints are that the dialogue is sometimes silly, some of the supporting characters are pretty one-dimensional and cartoonish (Amy Adam’s current-day husband played by Armie Hammer is a distant businessman who has to go away to New York to “make that very important sale”), and that the editing is a little wonky and overdone at some minor points. I initially had mixed-feelings about the ending, feeling that it was a bit anticlimactic and expected more to happen, but after thinking about it and how it ties to the movie’s themes and character relationships, I like it a lot more in retrospect. Unlike the movie, I can’t think of a good way to wrap this review up, but I’ll say that “Nocturnal Animals” is engaging, unique, and worth checking out, so let’s move on.

18. The Wailing – Its imposing length and frustrating lack of resolution/clarity can be hard to overcome for some people, but this South Korean supernatural horror flick is (in terms of acting, writing, directing, pacing, editing, themes, and just plain scariness and dread) the best and most effective horror film in quite a while. Like a bloodier and more emotionally tormenting version of “The Witch”.

17. La La Land – Before some of you call for my beheading for placing “La La Land” this “low” on my list, let me begin by saying that I still enjoyed the damn thing. From a purely technical perspective, “La La Land” is hands-down one of the best films of the year. Damien Chazelle’s immaculate direction perfectly captures the nostalgic sense one gets from watching old Hollywood musicals. This, coupled with terrific musical numbers and game actors makes “La La Land” an easy movie to enjoy. The story, however, is where the movie is a bit shaky.

The plot is about a down-on-their-luck aspiring actress and jazz pianist who fall in love while pursuing their dreams, and struggle to deal with the reality of keeping their relationship together while their paths go in different directions. The movie goes for a contrast between a magical, cheery Hollywood musical and a more grounded, dramatic approach, but for most of the movie it doesn’t quite gel as well as one would hope. I loved the first half of the movie, where it’s an extravagant musical about aspiring artists, but halfway through, it kind of jarringly becomes a relationship drama, with hardly any musical numbers, and this part seriously drags. It’s only near the end where Emma Stone sings her big “Give me an Oscar, goddammit” number that I even remembered this movie was supposed to be a musical. It’s like the movie takes two different approaches to its material, whereas one middle-ground approach (keep the big musical bits throughout but make them gradually more dramatic) would have made the movie a lot better, in my opinion. It doesn’t help that the two lead characters just aren’t very interesting. Don’t get me wrong; Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling try their damnedest here, but it feels more like two likable actors playing parts instead of real people with flaws and humanity, a feeling exacerbated by them not even having that good a chemistry.

If you can put up with an uneven viewing experience long enough, the film rewards you with one of the best endings I’ve seen in years, one where the themes, motivations, and songs are meshed together in a perfectly bittersweet sequence that actually makes up for a lot of the film’s flaws, and the one point in the film where the aforementioned contrast between fantasy and reality is perfectly in sync with the filmmaking style. It’s here where it stops being a movie about struggling artists and becomes something grander; a film about following your dreams but realizing that life never really works out the way you intend. This and the opening single-take number are ones for the ages, and make the film worth watching all by themselves. To put it in a one-sentence review, “La La Land” is still a case of a movie musical being really good in the first half but fizzling out in the second (something which happened in every one I’ve ever seen besides the “South Park” movie), but at least it recovers well enough to leave a positive impression.

16. The Shallows – I’m as surprised as you that this “hot-girl-gets-attacked-by-shark” film is this high up on my list, but here we are. Blake Lively plays said hot girl, a medical student who travels to an isolated beach in Mexico as a sort of spiritual journey/tribute to her deceased mother, and before long gets shark’d and stranded a few hundred feet from shore on some rocks during low-tide. I thought this would be the sort of cheeky, “Piranha 3D”-esque exploitation flick, but “The Shallows” actually has enough confidence to take itself fairly seriously. The main character has intelligence and some depth and even an arc (as obvious as it may be), and she’s buoyed by Lively’s terrific and believable performance. The shark is intimidating and scary, even when it’s not onscreen. The film has a good sense of progression, gradually escalating the threat level before arriving at the admittedly over-the-top but highly entertaining finale. It has a scene of the main character performing surgery on herself, which for some morbid reason I’ve always enjoyed seeing in movies and shows. And to top it all off, there’s a seagull that befriends the main character as she’s stranded, played by an actual trained seagull whose reactions (and lack thereof) are hilarious and his role in the plot surprisingly affecting. This seems like a stupid thing to harp on about, but if there was an Oscar for Best Performance by an Animal, Sully the Seagull’s performance as Steven Seagull would easily take home the prize.

There are a few issues, like how the main character tends to speak too much to herself (i.e. the audience) about her situation, and while I didn’t hate the very end of the movie, I do wish the film had ended a minute or two earlier right when it had a perfect moment to do so, instead of going on with an epilogue. However, given the expectations I had going in, director Jaume Collet-Serra uses Blake Lively’s good looks and strong acting ability, the beautiful camerawork and setting, his storytelling skills, and an adorable seagull to blow those expectations completely out of the water (har-har).

15. The Handmaiden – Gorgeously filmed, lurid, and thoroughly entertaining Korean erotic thriller with strong performances, writing, and a wonderfully dark sense of humor (an attempted hanging scene yielded one of the year’s biggest laughs for me). Strikes a good balance between artful grace and trashy pulp.

14. Silence – Of the 2016 films in which an accented and deeply religious Andrew Garfield has his faith tested by horrific violence committed by the Japanese, I like “Hacksaw Ridge” more, but this is still a powerful and deeply personal look at faith from Martin Scorsese. A challenging movie, but rewarding if you put in the effort to understand it thematically. A bit overlong and repetitive in the middle portion (though this is probably intentional), and I feel like the movie would be better if Garfield and Adam Driver switched roles, but from the moment Liam Neeson comes back into the movie, it’s outstanding to the end.

13. The Dressmaker – In the early ‘50s, a bus rolls into a tiny, rural Australian town that looks like something out of a Western. Out steps Kate Winslet, accompanied by a Morricone-esque guitar and violin, immaculately dressed and carrying a sewing machine in her case, who proceeds to light up a cigarette and say “I’m back, you bastards.”

Two minutes in and you already know you’re in for a fun movie. Winslet plays a dressmaker who returns to her hometown after being banished as a child to care for her cantankerous mother (Judy Davis), and before long, dredges up a lot of bad blood among the townsfolk that hurt and humiliated her years ago. To say any more would be to spoil the wonderful weirdness that emanates from this film. “The Dressmaker” blends family melodrama, Western, comedy that ranges from the dark to the surreal to the slapstick, campiness, tragedy, romance, and revenge. It’s a mess, sure, but it struts along with such confidence in itself and its source material that all these seemingly disparate elements miraculously work together, for the most part. It helps that Winslet and Davis are so excellent that they deftly maneuver through all these tones and keep you engaged in what’s happening. It’s tough to say what kind of person I’d recommend this to, but I’ll say this; If you’ve always wanted an Australian Western version of “Twin Peaks” where the protagonist is a female couturier instead of a male gunslinger, then “The Dressmaker” will quench that extremely particular thirst.

A note on why I consider Kate Winslet to be one the best actors in the business: SHE IS A FOREIGN ACTOR THAT NAILS A PERFECT AUSTRALIAN ACCENT.

12. 20th Century Women – Mike Mills somewhat tones down the quirkiness from “Beginners”, but still delivers a personal, heartfelt, and funny portrayal of humanity, here subverting the typical coming-of-age story of his teenage boy self-insert protagonist by focusing the film on the women in his life and how their feminist strength and independence help shape him as he grows up. Fantastic performances from Annette Bening and Greta “Love of my Life” Gerwig.

11. Moana – Beautiful visuals, wonderful music, top-notch voice acting, and a compelling and even touching story. I was pleasantly surprised by how long the movie took to set up the characters and their relationships and individual personalities before diving into the adventure. Even the stuff I normally find annoying in Disney movies (needless action scenes, cute animal sidekicks, hip modern references) are toned down here. Maui (voiced by The Rock, who has more charisma than the ocean has water, and a nice singing voice to boot) is extremely entertaining, but Moana is surprisingly a compelling character herself, someone who has aspirations and flaws and a sense of agency, as opposed to the usual dull Disney heroines who unwillingly fall into their fate before falling in love with Prince Flawless McGeneric. Great, empowering message (especially for young girls) about forging your own path in life. A million bonus points for not giving Moana a forced love interest. Another million points for Jemaine Clement as a giant, singing crab. Best animated film of 2016 by a wide margin. Disney’s best non-Pixar movie since “Lilo & Stitch”. Probably my favorite Disney Princess movie. I don’t care what anyone says; “Moana” was fucking lit.

10. Eddie the Eagle – One thing I’ve noticed about myself lately is how sick I am of “irony”. Not in the dramatic sense, but in the “replacing sincerity and any genuine feeling with some detached sense of humor” sense. I think it was the inexplicable but somehow expected rise in popularity of a meme involving a dead gorilla that did it for me. But my point is, lately I’ve been finding myself watching movies otherwise labeled as “corny” or “cheesy” by jaded, cynical and emotionally detached people, who do so just because said movies believe in their own stories without shame or self-referential humor. Well, fuck those people. They can rot in hell along with their precious gorilla.

“Eddie the Eagle” is about Michael “Eddie” Edwards, a British skier who despite having very little experience and natural talent managed through sheer determination and willpower to accomplish his dream of competing in the 1988 Winter Olympics. Eddie comes from a working class family with a loving, supportive mother and a stern, disapproving father. Despite being a talented skier, he is rejected by Olympic board members due to his uncouth and dopey nature. He realizes that he still has a chance of making it onto the Olympic team as a ski-jumper, since the British have not competed in the sport in several decades, so he runs away to Europe to start training, where he meets an alcoholic former ski-jumper-turned-snow-groomer that helps him train.

This film has pretty much every inspirational sports cliché imaginable, from the plucky loser underdog, to the grumpy mentor, to the uplifting synthesizer music, to the late moments where the protagonist is at his lowest point and wants to give up, and so on. In many cases these would be negatives. However, the movie embraces these clichés instead of trying to shy away from them, and in doing so it feels so sincere and full of heart that it actually works. You acknowledge the unoriginality, but you find yourself rooting for Eddie to succeed so much that you just don’t care. Dexter Fletcher’s direction is spirited and full of energy, the aforementioned synth music by Matthew Margeson is wonderful, and the two lead performances by Taron Egerton as Eddie and Hugh Jackman as his mentor are excellent. The movie isn’t all that historically accurate. The real Eddie Edwards himself said that “only about 5%” of the film is true, and even the tagline is “Inspired by a dream come true”, rather than “Based on a true story”. But as a Huffington Post critic said, “You can't believe most of it, but you can believe in it. That's a subtle but important difference.”

But do you want to know why this movie is so high up on my list? So many movies over the years have been praised as “emotional” and “tear-jerking” and to me ended up feeling manipulative and artificial (*cough*Room*cough*). “Eddie the Eagle”, however, with all its sincerity and heart and feel-good splendor, touched me so much that I actually cried at the end. I can count the movies that made me genuinely cry on one hand, and this is the only one that has ever made me cry tears of joy instead of sadness. If the ending scene at the airport doesn’t melt your heart, then congratulations on not having one.

9. Hunt for the Wilderpeople - Due to my continual disappointment in my usual preferred genres of film in 2016, I started to branch out a bit and check out films I otherwise normally wouldn’t, one of which is New Zealand coming-of-age comedy drama “Hunt for the Wilderpeople”. The plot is about a young juvenile delinquent boy and his grumpy foster father who, due to odd circumstances, find themselves hunted by the law and escape to “the bush”, the vast New Zealand forests. We follow them as the two survive, get into various misadventures, and face off with an obsessed child services worker. To reveal any more would be to spoil this wonderful movie. Suffice it to say I enjoyed the hell out of it. Rarely do you encounter a movie that does adventure, buddy comedy, or tragic drama this well, let alone one that does all three, while at the same time showing interesting aspects of Kiwi culture and the beautiful landscape without feeling like a travelogue. The boy (Julian Dennison) starts off as annoying, but this is intentional rather than the fault of bad acting, and he not only grows on you but also shows a good deal of comic timing and emotional range. Sam Neill as the grumpy foster dad gives a career-best performance, showing the kind of depth I didn’t expect from someone who I think I’ve only ever seen in the “Jurassic Park” movies. Honestly, I recommend this film to pretty much anyone (that has access to subtitles). It’s funny, touching, creative, and lovely to look at. Between this and “What We Do in the Shadows”, writer/director Taika Waititi has given me just the slightest bit of hope that “Thor: Ragnarok” will actually be good.

8. Paterson – Wonderfully understated, warm, and compassionate ode to the passion and creativity found in everyday life, making even the smallest mundanities feel profound and moving. No story arc or big dramatic moments to speak of; just the story of a quiet but observant bus driver/poet and his seemingly unremarkable but, well, poetic life. The relationship between Adam Driver and his wife (Golshifteh Farahani) is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen in a movie. Also; casting Adam Driver as a bus driver? Bravo, Jim Jarmusch.

7. The Nice Guys – I can’t believe I used to not care for Ryan Gosling. Granted, for the longest time the only movie I’d seen him in was “Drive”, and it’s hard to take someone seriously as an actor when all the role asks of someone is to stare silently for uncomfortably long periods and occasionally hit people. But nonetheless, in recent years the guy has done phenomenal work and completely won me over as an actor, culminating in Shane Black’s “The Nice Guys”, where he gives his best performance to date. He is shockingly funny and provides not only a lot of the laughs in this movie, but also a good deal of its heart. He’s gotten a lot of awards attention for his role in “La La Land”, but to me this is the highlight of his career so far.

Gosling plays an alcoholic, bumbling private detective and single father who teams up with the low-rent enforcer who broke his arm (Russell Crowe) to crack a major conspiracy involving a missing girl and a dead porn star. Tagging along for much of the mystery is Gosling’s teenage daughter, played by Angourie Rice in one of the best child performances I’ve ever seen in a movie (damning with faint praise, but still, give her credit), easily holding her own in scenes with Gosling and Crowe, despite a few awkward line deliveries. The three leads are great and have excellent chemistry with each other and with the strong supporting cast, helped along by Black’s hilarious dialogue, irreverent sense of humor, and his continuing growth as a director. I already harped on this in previous reviews, but it’s really refreshing to see a comedy that actually sets its jokes up before giving them a good payoff, especially one where some setups aren’t initially obvious (a seemingly throwaway story about Richard Nixon ended up giving me one of the biggest laughs of the year later on).

There’s kind of a lack of urgency to the mystery that makes the pacing a bit lethargic. I didn’t mind it much because the characters are so likable that you don’t mind spending time with them, but it’s worth mentioning. While there’s some character conflict and growth, I wish it tied into the plot a bit more. The lack of a clear antagonist for the first half of the movie also hurts. There are a lot of jokes and visual gags, and while most work, a few do fall flat. I feel like an extra rewrite and some tighter editing could fix most of these problems, and none of them are by any means a deal-breaker.

It feels weird to call this film “original”, since it’s more or less the same film Shane Black’s been making for the past 30 years, but in an increasingly bland world of mainstream filmmaking, it’s so refreshing to see a unique voice like Black do his own thing with a great cast and a solid budget. It’s a damn shame that a film which should’ve led to some sequels instead just barely made its’ production budget back. Put it another way; if you complain about a lack of originality in Hollywood but still paid money to see the latest superhero flick instead of “The Nice Guys”, please dip your head into a bucket of wet cement until the bubbles stop.

6. Hacksaw Ridge – I’m willing to go on record and say that “Hacksaw Ridge” is probably the most violent movie I’ve ever seen (at least the most violent since the last Mel Gibson movie). Considering this, only Mad Mel can make such an insanely violent film while also telling a moving story about one man’s faith and adherence to pacifism. The story is about Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector and pacifist who wanted to serve his country as a combat medic, and whose extraordinary rescue of over 70 soldiers during the Battle of Okinawa became the stuff of legend and earned him a Medal of Honor.

The movie has kind of a typical biopic structure, showing his early years as a troublesome lad who finds meaning in life with Christianity, to his young adult days where he tries to romance his impossibly attractive later-wife, before moving to the boot camp scenes where he’s persecuted by others for his refusal to pick up a gun, and finally to the war scenes. The transition between corny but solid, old-fashioned melodrama (or MEL-odrama) and the incredible, surreal, horrific war stuff may sound jarring, but in a very smart move, Gibson opens the film with a slow-motion montage of combat with a narration from Doss. This seems kind of clichéd, but it sets your mind up to expect the stuff you’ll see later, while at the same time taking away none of the impact.

Contrary to what some may think about the film and of Gibson going in, it’s not one of those shitty “Christians are good, others suck” films that do remarkably well in the southern states. The subject of the film is deeply religious and the film has its fair share of unsubtle Christ-like imagery, sure, but not only does it not beat you over the head with it, it even feels earned after seeing what Doss is put through. Plus, if anything, it’s less about the strength of faith and more about sticking to your convictions even when the whole world tests you. Plus, it’s refreshing for a war movie to heroically portray a man who saved lives instead of taking them.

Despite being away from the director’s chair for a decade, Gibson has lost none of his storytelling prowess or his penchant for striking imagery. The period and technical detail is fantastic (during one scene where you see through the scope of a Japanese sniper rifle, the film even got the scope right). Despite having to fill the late, great James Horner’s (who couldn’t do the film due to his unfortunate death in 2015) shoes, Rupert Gregson-Williams surprisingly turns in one of the strongest musical scores of the year. The mostly-Australian cast is excellent, with Andrew Garfield giving a career-best performance as Doss (at this point, I forgive him for “The Amazing Spiderman 2”), as well as strong supporting turns from Vince Vaughn as the funny/tough drill sergeant, and especially from Hugo Weaving as Doss’s PTSD-ridden WWI veteran father. Weaving genuinely looks like a man who died in the trenches in France but whose body still returned home, turning to booze and anger to make him forget the trauma he experienced.

I would say that Hacksaw Ridge has all the makings of a great film but is slightly held back by some story choices. The film kind of ends shortly after Doss’s heroic exploits with some standard biopic text and interviews from his real-life former comrades. It’s fine, but I think it would have had more impact to first show Doss returning home and reuniting with his wife and family, considering how prominent the theme of family was in the film. Also, there is one scene late in the movie involving Japanese officers, which I won’t spoil, but it feels forced and EXTREMELY unnecessary (I guess Gibson just has a thing for beheadings).

Still, considering how good this film is overall and how well it’s being received, I’m happy to report that Mel Gibson is no longer persona non-grata in Hollywood, and that I absolutely look forward to whatever he’s making next. Welcome back, Mel. We missed you.

Note: Something I thought of after watching “Hacksaw Ridge”; Mel Gibson could totally direct a “Mad Max” film.

5. Hell or High Water - On an early Texas morning, a two men rob a pair of branches of the Texas Midlands Bank. While not without a few hiccups, the robberies go smoothly. The two men are siblings; calm and smart divorced father Toby (Chris Pine), and his loose-cannon ex-con brother Tanner (Ben Foster). They are trying to raise enough money to save their family farm by paying off the foreclosing bank with its own stolen money, while being hunted down by Texas Rangers Marcus and Alberto (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham), the former close to retirement. There are still a number of branches they need to rob in order to raise the needed amount. What ensues is one of the most mature and intelligent thrillers I’ve seen in a long time.

There is no black or white. Just two sides of the law. We understand both sides, and the motivation of each man. While the robbery scenes are thrilling and gritty, the movie actually shows a tremendous level of restraint. The pacing is deliberately slow, but the film is so well-made and well-written and so confident in itself that it never becomes boring, and it builds exceptionally well to its grip-you-by-the-balls climax. The movie spends a lot of time with the characters talking, with dialogue that feels both realistic and entertaining. The extremely underrated TV show "Justified" has instilled in me a joy in hearing Southern people talk shit to each other, and the movie doesn't let me down in that regard. The rural, neo-Western setting is wonderfully atmospheric and does a good job conveying how tough life can be in such a place (with a noteworthy supporting performance from Katy Mixon as a waitress who refuses to give back a large tip of stolen money to the Rangers).

Even though his character is pretty much a less alcoholic and more down-to-earth version of his Rooster Cogburn from the Coens’ “True Grit”, Bridges still impresses with a soulful and highly entertaining performance. Similarly, while Ben Foster feels a bit typecast as the “wild man” brother, he still knocks it out of the park with his confidence and screen presence. The biggest surprise is Chris Pine, tuning down his smirky charm and turning in his best performance to date as a man whose cool-headedness masks his desperation.

If I had to think of a flaw, it's that the film has a slightly-annoying over-reliance on licensed country songs in the first half of the movie...really, that's all I can think of. The slow pacing might be a turnoff for some people (some extremely thick people who very likely have ADHD and are virgins), but it pays off so well that I can't even consider it a problem for anyone with a three-digit IQ. If you are tired of action movies or thrillers being dumb, this is the movie for you. If you are tired of smart movies being dull, this is the movie for you. "Hell or High Water" is a diamond in the rough that is 2016, and deserves your attention.

4. Elle – I saw this movie solely because Paul Verhoeven directed a sizable portion of my childhood (Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers), and he has enough goodwill based on that alone that I’ll check out anything he makes. While his European films are noticeably different from his American action classics, one thing that hasn’t faltered is his skill as a director and unique voice in telling provocative stories. “Elle” certainly has one hell of an opening. A wealthy middle-aged woman named Michèle is attacked and raped in her home in France. After the intruder leaves, Michèle calmly collects herself, cleans herself and her home, and goes to work the next day as if nothing is wrong. The rest of the movie is about her conducting her own investigation into finding out who attacked her as we learn about her feelings and why she doesn’t notify the police, as well as her complicated relationships with her friends, neighbors and family.

I can definitely see a lot of people getting offended by this movie’s depiction of rape and its consequences on the main character, but considering how complex and unpredictable human beings can be, this is one of the most bracing, raw and honest depictions of the subject I’ve ever seen. Put it simply, this isn’t your typical rape-revenge film. The excellent writing and Verhoeven’s strong command of the material and his cast elevates it beyond what I thought possible. The characters are very well-defined, with all their own quirks and needs and insecurities, and despite how uncomfortable the film can be, it’s also surprisingly very funny in how it presents them and their relationships with each other, especially during a fantastic Christmas dinner scene where all the characters and their animosities come together. There is a lot of gossiping, resentment, passive-aggressiveness and cuckoldry on display (it’s a French movie, so no surprise there). The film is certainly lurid, but everything from the story and performances to the themes and subtext is done so well that you can’t stop watching. At no moment during its two-and-a-half-hour running time was I bored.

“Elle” is a film I wouldn’t recommend to everyone due to its’ length and subject matter, but thanks to the strong writing, Paul Verhoeven’s confident direction, and a stunning lead performance from Isabelle Huppert, this a bold, gripping, and surprisingly entertaining film that is absolutely worth going out of your way to see if you can stomach it. Plus, there’s a really cute cat.

With that out of the way; please come back to America and make another gory, over-the-top action film, Mr. Verhoeven. Hollywood needs you more than you need it.

3. Sing Street – An Irish lad from a broken home in 1985 Dublin gets transferred to a rough, inner-city school. Soon he meets a mysterious girl hanging around outside the school, and in an effort to impress her, asks her to be a model in a music video for his non-existent band.

What follows is a coming-of-age story about artistic expression and love where the boy gathers anyone that can play an instrument (including the funniest part of the movie where they try to recruit “probably the only black guy in Dublin”), starts making music and videos, and slowly starts bonding with the girl. It’s tough to make a movie set in 20th century Ireland feel optimistic, but writer/director John Carney deftly maneuvers between comedy and drama, makes the film simultaneously fantastic yet grounded, making the story of falling in love and following one’s dreams feel believable and easy to root for.

From the tagline “Boy meets girl. Girl unimpressed. Boy starts band”, you can probably guess the general progression of the plot. This, coupled with the fact that I don’t like coming-of-age stories, or musicals, or Irish people*, means that this film was facing an uphill battle from me. Imagine how goddamn good this film must be that it’s number 3 on my list this year. A cynic would say that it doesn’t face much competition from an unremarkable year for film like 2016, but “Sing Street” is a wonderful ode to the power of music and young love that would be great in any year, and I defy you to watch it without a smile on your face. Basically, if you possess a heart, a soul, a dream, a love for music, or a pulse, I cannot recommend “Sing Street” enough.

*kidding. I love you, you pale, swear-y, chip-shop bombing drunkards.

2. Star Trek Beyond – After a strong start to a reboot of the storied franchise with 2009’s “Star Trek”, the series took a nosedive with “Star Trek Into Darkness”, the woefully misguided attempt to make the series dark and gritty. Because of this and the new director being Justin Lin, a man who has made four (well, three and a cameo) films about Vin Diesel sleepily growling about family in between scenes of supercars performing Cirque du Soleil acts, I wasn’t all too excited for the new entry, even though it’d be written by talented comic actor and well-known nerd Simon Pegg. Who would have thought that Pegg and Lin would have been the ones that saved not only 2016 from being a shit year for blockbusters, but also the soul of the “Star Trek” franchise?

The plot is about Kirk and the Enterprise crew getting stranded on a remote world after being attacked by a mysterious warlord while investigating a missing ship. It’s a slick and self-contained adventure, making it feel like a long and big-budget episode of the series in the best possible way. I don’t want to imply that this is the “Star Trek” of yore. It’s still a big, over-the-top space action film. But it has something that the previous two films (especially Into Darkness) lacked; spirit. The spirit of discovery, of exploration, of optimism. That despite the dangers in the galaxy, any problem can be overcome as long as all the species work together. Most importantly, it has an emphasis on character, actually slowing down at times to let them breathe and talk and joke with each other (y’know, like they’re people or something, and not just plot-devices). There’s a wonderful little scene at the start where Kirk and Bones share a drink to toast Kirk’s deceased father, and the tributes to the gone-but-not-forgotten Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin were beautifully done.

It’s remarkable how well Lin and Pegg capture this “Star Trek” spirit while still making an exciting, blockbuster action film. Lin brings his A-game to the action scenes, making them fun, creative, and natural as a story progression. You always understand why the action is happening, as opposed to a random fight being thrown in for its own sake. There’s a certain scene later in the film where a ship has to take on a swarm of smaller enemies with a familiar musical cue, and I cannot remember the last time I ever felt so much hype and childish glee in a movie scene.

I guess the villain is the same generic normal-guy-who-was-betrayed-and-wants revenge that the past two films had, but between the still-excellent cast (newcomer Sofia Boutella steals the show as an alien warrior/scavenger that Scotty meets), a strong soundtrack, awesome visuals, a fun story, involving action scenes, and that warm “Star Trek” feel to it, “Star Trek Beyond” feels like a jolt to the heart of a series that was in danger of becoming lost to soulless, studio-driven blockbuster territory. Assuming there’s more to this series of films, I cannot wait to see where the franchise boldly goes from here.

1. Free Fire – This is the most fun I’ve had in a theater since “Mad Max: Fury Road”. I wasn’t a huge fan of Ben Wheatley’s previous films, but among the material I didn’t really care for, I saw an undeniable talent in his work. Here, it’s like he used his powers to make a movie precisely for me.

The film is about an arms deal that takes place in a warehouse between two groups of criminals that quickly gets out of hand after shots are fired in the exchange. The remaining 70 minutes of this 90-minute long movie is basically one really long shootout as everyone picks sides, betray each other, and get increasingly wounded while rarely ceasing their shit-talking. Think “Reservoir Dogs” as a comedy of miscommunication. In an amazing feat of filmmaking, Wheatley makes sure that this lengthy shootout set mostly in one large room isn’t boring for a second. His smart, gradual escalation of events punctuated with a number of “holy shit” moments and set pieces, held together by excellent editing, keeps the film exciting and darkly funny throughout. In between the big moments, characters take pause to hurl expletives at each other and ponder their own situation as they desperately try to get out of it, adding up to people you care about and are interested in even if they’re all dicks. This is a brilliant example of how important pacing and characterization is to a film, especially to one with so little plot.

Also helping is the hilarious banter, delivered by a wonderful and colorful cast of characters played by a small but absolutely stellar cast. Everyone is great and play their characters perfectly, with a standout performance by Sharlto Copley as an unhinged, self-absorbed arms dealer who causes much of the conflict in the film. I knew I’d love him as soon as a character says “Vernon was misdiagnosed as a child genius and never got over it.” I also want to mention the sound design, which is some of the best in recent memory, with every bullet fired feeling like a loud jolt to one’s system. The writing is highly enjoyable on a superficial level, and even carries a bit of depth with the shootout being a clever allegory for human nature and just generally what happens when idiots own guns.

“Free Fire” is by far the best movie I saw this year, and when it gets a theatrical release, I implore you to go see it. The only complaints I can think of are that the ending is just alright, and after a certain point you start to wonder where some of the characters keep getting their ammo from. Time will tell if this film stands up to repeated viewings, but this was easily the funniest, craziest, and most entertaining film I’ve seen all year. Yes, my favorite movie of 2016 is a 2017 movie in which characters argue and shoot each other in a dirty warehouse for 90 minutes. Cinema isn’t dead yet.

The “30 and Still Living in Parents’ Basement” Award for Biggest Disappointment 

Nominees:

 ·         Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

·         Jason Bourne

·         Passengers

·         Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

·         Warcraft

Runner-up:

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Winner:

Passengers

The “Clever Marketing” Award for Best Tagline

Nominees:

·         Elvis & Nixon – “On December 21st, 1970, two of America's greatest recording artists met for the first time.”

·         Free Fire – “All guns. No control.”

·         London Has Fallen – “Prepare for bloody hell”

·         The Dressmaker – “Revenge is back in fashion”

Runner-up:

The Dressmaker

Winner:

Elvis & Nixon

The “Postcore Avantwave” Award for Best Film Score

Nominees:

·         Bear McCreary – 10 Cloverfield Lane

·         Justin Hurwitz – La La Land

·         Mark Mancina, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa'i - Moana

·         Matthew Margeson – Eddie the Eagle

·         Michael Giacchino – Star Trek Beyond

·         Rupert Gregson-Williams – Hacksaw Ridge

·         Shirō Sagisu – Shin Godzilla

Runner-up:

Mark Mancina, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa'i - Moana

Winner:

Bear McCreary – 10 Cloverfield Lane

The "I'm Glad We Decided to Keep It" Award for Best Child Performance

Nominees:

·         Angourie Rice - The Nice Guys

·         Auli'i Cravalho - Moana

·         Ferdia Walsh-Peelo – Sing Street

·         Harvey Scrimshaw - The Witch

·         Julian Dennison - Hunt for the Wilderpeople

·         Kim Su-an – Train to Busan

·         Lucas Jade Zumann – 20th Century Women

Runner-up:

Julian Dennison - Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Winner:

Angourie Rice - The Nice Guys

The “If Only the Rest of the Movie Was This Good” Award for Best Scene

Nominees:

·         Athens riot – Jason Bourne

·         Beach drowning – Silence

·         Captain America and Winter Soldier vs. Iron Man – Captain America: Civil War

·         Car chase – Operation Avalanche

·         Christmas dinner party – Elle

·         Climactic robbery/shootout/getaway – Hell or High Water

·         Desmond’s rescues – Hacksaw Ridge

·         “Drive It Like You Stole It” – Sing Street

·         Epilogue – La La Land

·         Entering the ship – Arrival

·         “How Far I’ll Go” – Moana

·         Police station – Manchester by the Sea

·         Sabotage – Star Trek Beyond

·         The un-destruction of Hong Kong – Doctor Strange

·         The 90-meter jump – Eddie the Eagle

·         Quicksilver and the exploding mansion – X-Men: Apocalypse

·         Warehouse rescue - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Runner-up:

Police station – Manchester by the Sea

Winner:

Sabotage – Star Trek Beyond

The “Pig in Lipstick” Award for Prettiest Movie

Nominees:

·         A Bigger Splash

·         Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

·         Doctor Strange

·         Hail Caesar!

·         Kubo and the Two Strings

·         La La Land

·         Moana

·         The Handmaiden

·         The Love Witch

Runner-up:

The Handmaiden

Winner:

Kubo and the Two Strings

The “Premium Meth” Award for Best Chemistry

Nominees:

·         Adam Driver and Golshifteh Farahani - Paterson

·         Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams – Manchester by the Sea

·         Chris Pine and Ben Foster – Hell or High Water

·         Gerard Butler and his knife – London Has Fallen

·         Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham – Hell or High Water

·         Michael Peña and Alexander Skarsgård – War on Everyone

·         Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton – Loving

·         Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe – The Nice Guys

·         Ryan Reynolds and Morena Baccarin – Deadpool

·         Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Strong – The Brothers Grimsby

Runner-up:

Michael Peña and Alexander Skarsgård – War on Everyone

Winner:

Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams – Manchester by the Sea

The “Healed Broken Bone” Award for Best Cast

Nominees:

·         20th Century Women

·         Captain America: Civil War

·         Everybody Wants Some!!

·         Fences

·         Free Fire

·         Hail, Caesar!

·         Love & Friendship

·         Sing Street

·         Star Trek Beyond

·         The Magnificent Seven

Runner-up:

Sing Street

Winner:

Free Fire

The “Convincingly Faked Orgasm” Award for Best Performance

Honorable Mentions:

·         Andrew Garfield – Hacksaw Ridge

·         Ben Foster – Hell or High Water

·         Blake Lively – The Shallows

·         Chris Pine – Hell or High Water

·         Emma Stone – La La Land

·         Hugo Weaving – Hacksaw Ridge

·         Joe Alwyn – Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

·         Joel Edgerton – Loving

·         Judy Davis – The Dressmaker

·         Kate Beckinsale – Love & Friendship

·         Kate Winslet – The Dressmaker

·         Kwak Do-won – The Wailing

·         Mahershala Ali - Moonlight

·         Ruth Negga – Loving

·         Sam Neill – Hunt for the Wilderpeople

·         Viggo Mortensen – Captain Fantastic

·         Woody Harrelson – The Edge of Seventeen

Nominees:

·         Adam Driver – Paterson

·         Alden Ehrenreich – Hail, Caesar!

·         Annette Bening – 20th Century Women

·         Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea

·         Denzel Washington – Fences

·         Gerard Butler – London Has Fallen

·         Greta Gerwig – 20th Century Women

·         Isabelle Huppert - Elle

·         Jeff Bridges – Hell or High Water

·         John Goodman – 10 Cloverfield Lane

·         Michael Shannon – Nocturnal Animals

·         Michelle Williams – Manchester by the Sea

·         Ralph Fiennes – A Bigger Splash

·         Rebecca Hall – Christine

·         Ryan Gosling – The Nice Guys

·         Ryan Reynolds – Deadpool

·         ­Sharlto Copley – Free Fire

·         Tom Bennett – Love & Friendship

·         Viola Davis – Fences

Runner-up:

Gerard Butler – London Has Fallen

Winner:

Ryan Gosling – The Nice Guys

In regards to my final award:

The whole “Fuck 2016” thing has been done to death, albeit not undeservingly, so this’ll be my only word on the matter. A lot of us had a rough year, dealing with political strife, global conflict, environmental issues, personal problems, celebrity deaths, “Suicide Squad”, etc. Even in film, 2016 has felt like a bit of a downer, with many films I was looking forward to letting me down. However, there have been quite a few gems, especially in the latter half of the year, and a good number of these are off the beaten path, ones I actively searched for to find and ones I gave a shot even if they’re the type of thing I wouldn’t normally see.

My point is, we have to make an effort to get the good out of life. You can still find some gems while wading through a river of shit (which you’re going to wade through anyway), and I’m not just talking about movies. Try something you normally wouldn’t. Try to pick up a new hobby. Make some personal time for yourself, even if you’re swamped with work or school. Start exercising if you don’t already (hell, try yoga). Don’t just accept that life is shit; do something to make it less shit. Always strive to better yourself, because while there’s no such thing as perfection (unless you’re Michael Shannon), it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t reach for it.

The mere fact that you’re reading this means that you’re actively trying to de-pleb yourself, or maybe it’s because you love me or maybe I just make you laugh sometimes. In any case, thank you for reading this year-in-review. As it has been for the past two years, writing this was fun and therapeutic. I wish you all luck in seeking happiness (and good taste in film, like mine), and for those of you who have a bad day somewhere on that journey, film is always there for you, including the following films which can cheer one up even on the rainiest days.

The “Ancient Indian Burial Ground” Award for Film Most Likely to Raise Your Spirits

Nominees:

Eddie the Eagle

Sing Street

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Everybody Wants Some!!

Moana

Runner-up:

Sing Street

Winner:

Eddie the Eagle

#2016 #movies #review